What irony. After a heated battle to pass a smoking ban to protect residents from the effects of secondhand smoke, Lawrence now learns that a state sting operation shows that local stores failed to enforce laws banning the sale of cigarettes to minors almost three times out of four.

When the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control sent people under the age of 18 into 19 Lawrence stores to buy cigarettes, the buyers successfully completed the purchase 14 times. The businesses in question ran the gamut from convenience stores to supermarkets to the KU Burge Union’s bookstore.

Although the ABC report didn’t compare counties, it was clear Douglas County’s enforcement was well behind that in other large counties. In Johnson County, 57 percent of stores sold to minors; in Shawnee County it was just 26 percent.

There doesn’t seem to be any good justification for such a discrepancy, but local store owners and even the administrator of the sting operation were looking for excuses.

“Retailers do a pretty good job overall, but it’s a little bit more complicated than saying “Don’t sell,'” said the administrator, Jackson Armbrister. “When there are 14 people in line and everybody’s busy, a lot of these clerks are younger and they get rattled and make a sale when they shouldn’t.”

The manager of one of the Lawrence stores caught in the sting seconded that excuse claiming, “We card everybody.” Her store got caught when a store clerk misread the date on an ID, she said, adding that she thought it was unrealistic for young people making minimum wage to accurately read every ID they saw.

On the contrary, it is not unreasonable to expect state law to be consistently followed and enforced. If any store manager believes his or her employees can’t ask for an ID and accurately read the date of birth, there are two options: Hire more responsible help or quit selling cigarettes to anyone. Recent state action to increase the first-time fine for businesses that sell cigarettes to people under 18 should help reinforce that message. That penalty was raised from $250 to $1,000, and clerks can face criminal prosecution.

Perhaps the sting operation conducted earlier this year will send a useful message to local retailers that part-time enforcement of the law prohibiting sale of cigarettes to minors isn’t good enough. The ease with which the ABC buyers were able to buy cigarettes in Lawrence is an embarrassing statistic in a community that has so prominently displayed its concern about the dangers of smoking.