Effort launched to keep tobacco away from minors / LJWorld.com

Archive for Thursday, June 7, 2007

By John Hanna - Associated Press Writer

June 7, 2007

Topeka — Worried that Kansas could lose federal anti-tobacco dollars for the second time in five years, two state agencies have launched a new effort to keep stores from selling cigarettes and other products to minors.

The effort will cost more than $412,000 between now and July 1, 2008, and it includes hiring five agents to police retail tobacco sales. It also includes hiring a Denver company to do 5,000 random checks of convenience stores.

The Department of Revenue, which licenses and regulates tobacco retailers, signed an agreement with the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, launching the efforts. Revenue Secretary Joan Wagnon and SRS Secretary Don Jordan had a news conference Wednesday to publicize their efforts.

Driving the initiative is a fear that Kansas will be forced to divert state funds to anti-tobacco programs for failing to comply with federal standards on preventing minors from buying tobacco products. That happened in 2004, and in 2006, the state was barely in compliance.

"They will not be nice the second time around if we do not fix this," Wagnon said. "We were there by the skin of our teeth this past year - the skin of our teeth - and we do not want to come that close to having our funding lost again."

A federal law requires that in random checks, at least 80 percent of a state's merchants refuse to sell tobacco products to minors. The Department of Revenue checks 650 of the state's 3,100 retailers licensed to sell tobacco each year.

SRS now plans to give a $100,000 grant to the BARS Program, in Denver, to conduct the additional checks. When a minor is sold tobacco in a BARS check, the store receives a red card within 24 hours. The card serves as a notice that had the buyer been an agent for the state, the retailer would have faced a fine.

Wagnon noted that her department can revoke the licenses of stores that sell tobacco to minors and said she won't hesitate to use that power in the future against repeat violators. But she said she'd rather start with educating merchants.

"It's about limiting access to tobacco so that it's not easy for kids to get it," Wagnon said. "It's explaining to them what the health hazards are, and it's explaining to retailers what the penalties are if they don't do it."