And if cigarettes ARE sold to anyone under the legal age, then they are getting what they deserve. We have a bad enough name without having more dumped on us because some irresponsible clerk sells cigarettes to kids.
Posted on 11/21/2002 4:17:31 AM PST by chance33_98
New Law Aims to Curb Youth Smoking
By MIKE MEYERS Daily Cal Staff Writer Thursday, November 21, 2002
Selling cigarettes to children just got more difficult.
The Berkeley City Council read into law a new ordinance Tuesday night requiring stores that purvey tobacco products to purchase a yearly $283 license.
Merchants repeatedly caught selling cigarettes to minors could have their licenses suspended or revoked.
Drafters of the ordinance believe it will cut youth smoking.
"Every year a significant proportion of merchants end up selling to minors, and if they have a license and a fee they might think twice about it," said city Health Officer Poki Namkung.
Last summer, the Berkeley Police Department conducted a youth cigarette sting. Thirty-eight percent of the merchants targeted in the undercover operation sold tobacco to minors.
Part of the proceeds the city will accrue from the sale of tobacco licenses will go toward enforcing tobacco laws.
"Two hundred eighty-three dollars—I don't think that's too much," said Councilmember Betty Olds. "They're selling poison, and we're paying for it."
The threat of losing their share of the lucrative tobacco trade will keep some retailers in line, Olds said. But she added the new law won't keep cigarettes completely out of children's hands.
"I don't think it's the owners," Olds said. "It's the young people they hire. They sell them to their friends."
The new license requirement is part of a citywide effort to cut tobacco use.
"There's a broad basis of support," Namkung said. "From the health end, the political end and the enforcement end."
Preventing a child from smoking reduces the chances he will become a lifelong smoker, Namkung said.
Approximately 160 merchants currently offer tobacco products in Berkeley.
There are no plans as of yet to use the licensing system to reduce that number, Olds said.
"I don't think we could go that far," she added.
Doubts about he plan were raised by three different merchants at the council meeting.
"What they should've done is that if they catch a youngster smoking a cigarette, if you could prove that he bought it from that store, they should cite that store," said Omar Ahmed, owner of Lee's Market.
Ahmed also called the council's unanimous passage of the ordinance "an aggression."
"We" are paying for gay men who acquire AIDS through poisonous behavior. Are these miscreants going to license homosexuals or drug dealers who reside in UC at Bezerkley dorms? Who cares if minors smoke? Certainly not me. I quit smoking cigarettes more than a decade ago having started at 14. It would have been ludicrous back then to even bring this subject up. The concept of free choice only applies to murdering unborn babies in Liberal World.
Sounds like some more commies needed a reason for another tax and this was a feel-good reason that would demonize anyone opposed to it: "You WANT kids to have cigarettes???"
And if cigarettes ARE sold to anyone under the legal age, then they are getting what they deserve. We have a bad enough name without having more dumped on us because some irresponsible clerk sells cigarettes to kids.
IMHO, RINO's who vote to tax someone else are part of the left wing. If it were not for these moronic soccer-moms, conservitives would have been able to take charge and start cleaning up the mess that x42 made a long time ago...or better yet, the mess wouldn't have been made in the first place.
Stores and clerks who sell to minors should be fined, but so should the kids who are smoking.
The way the law is written here is it only illegal to sell tobacco products to minors. It is not illegal for them to use or possess them - nor is it illegal for them to buy it.
Straight out of looney-tunes if you ask me!!!!!!!
Examples:
Original Looney State | New Looney State
California | Colorado and Washington
Massachussetts | Vermont and New Hampshire
Feel free to add on. Moral of the story: Dogs don't like to sleep in the mess they made.
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