By KATHERINE PETERSEN
Many police departments in Santa Clara County will begin cracking down on teenagers' access to tobacco after receiving tips from officers in Sunnyvale, San Jose and Campbell at a tobacco control seminar held Jan. 31 in San Jose.
Sunnyvale officers have conducted two successful sting operations to catch merchants who sell cigarettes to minors.
"Laws [to] prevent merchants from selling tobacco to people under 18 have been on the books for a long time, but have not been enforced," said Marilyn Roth, a management analyst in the Santa Clara County Tobacco Control Program in the county's Public Health Department.
Regan Williams, director of Sunnyvale Public Safety, said he learned that an underaged person who has cigarettes can be cited.
"I'm not suggesting that we will run out and arrest every one with a pack of cigarettes, but it's a tool we can use," he said.
Roth said five police chiefs and about 25 officers from county departments attended the seminar, during which District Attorney George Kennedy advised officers on how to operate stings properly so they can be prosecuted.
Roth applauded the passage of a recent state law that makes it more difficult for teenagers to buy cigarettes from vending machines. According to the law, businesses without liquor licenses cannot house cigarette machines.
"Kids can buy cigarettes almost 100 percent of the time from machines. They aren't guarded. Young kids may get carded by a clerk, but they can sneak to a vending machine and buy," she said.
As of Jan. 11, only 5,000 of the state's 30,000 vending machines are legally able to sell cigarettes.
The new law amends the existing STAKE (Stop Tobacco Access To Kids) Act, which requires cigarette machines to be within 15 feet of business entrances. Businesses that violate the new law are subject to fines up to $6,000.
Bay City News Service contributed to this report.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, February 7, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.