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More isle teens
buy cigarettes illegally

An official says it appears
store clerks demand ID,
but don't do the math

By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

Retail clerks who sell cigarettes are asking young people for identification but apparently not looking at it, says Elaine Wilson, chief of the state Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division.

As a result, Hawaii's violation rate for illegal sales of cigarettes to minors rose to 37.7 percent in police inspections in the December-November period, up from an average of 25 percent during the preceding year, she said.

"So we are very alarmed.''

Wilson said clerks must be assuming that no one would show identification so readily if it wasn't valid. "I do think they know how to do the math."

Retailers are being asked to post signs or make labels that say, "No sale if born after today, 1982," she said.

Wilson's division uses teen volunteers to detect illegal cigarette sales to minors under state and federal laws.

The state program, Kids Against Tobacco Sales, was started in 1995 with the University of Hawaii Cancer Research Center.

In addition, inspections of 1,600 stores statewide that sell tobacco products began in October1998 under a Food and Drug Administration contract. Since its inception through last October, the young volunteers and FDA inspectors had been to 827 stores statewide, finding 206 violations.

Hawaii's 25 percent violation rate for that period matches the national average, Wilson said.

Nationally, 141,650 stores were inspected in less than two years, with violation rates ranging from a low of 9 percent in Maine to 53 percent in Georgia and 59 percent in the Virgin Islands.

National compliance results are available on a new FDA Web site: fda.gov. Look for a Children & Tobacco home page and click on compliance-checker.

Wilson said the FDA asked its volunteer youths to carry ID, and they have been doing it since last September -- and getting more sales.

In October, November and December, she said, the volunteers and FDA inspectors went to 334 stores and reported 118 illegal sales -- a violation rate of 35.3 percent.

"While our overall rate is 25 percent, since our kids have been carrying ID, it's been much more like 30 to 50 percent, and that concerns us greatly," she said.

"What we need is for merchants and store owners to teach clerks that once they get identification, they need to check the date, to see if the youth was born in 1982 or earlier to make sure the youth is 18."

In November and December, police and i.d.-carrying teen volunteers visited 61 stores to enforce the state law and netted 23 illegal sales -- 37.7 percent, which stirred more alarm, Wilson said.

Under federal regulations, the FDA issues a notice after the first violation. Penalties then are imposed against the store owner for subsequent violations, with a $250 fine for the second violation and increased fines up to $10,000 for a fifth violation. Under state law, the first violation draws a $500 fine, levied against the clerk.

Wilson's division has received $306,495 from the FDA for the program this year, with an agreement to inspect 127 stores a month. Every store selling cigarettes must be inspected at least once during the year, and sometimes twice, she said.