photo by: Kevin Anderson/Journal-World File Photo

The Lawrence-Douglas County health department's home at the Community Health Facility, 200 Maine St., is pictured in this file photo from July 2010.

In Lawrence, the start of the new year will also mark the start of a new initiative aimed at curbing tobacco sales to people younger than 21.

The Lawrence City Commission passed two ordinances in mid-October related to tobacco products, one raising the legal age to buy tobacco products in Lawrence from 18 to 21 and another establishing a local tobacco sales license and enforcement process. The latter ordinance is being enforced by Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, and staff with the health department told the Journal-World this past week that the licensing process would officially go into effect with the start of the new year on Sunday.

A tobacco retail license requires retailers to verify that someone purchasing a tobacco product is at least 21 years old, most often by examining their driver’s license or another form of government-issued identification. Verification isn’t required for any purchaser who reasonably appears to be older than 30. In Lawrence, the license fee will be $260, and a license will be valid for a year.

Vicki Collie-Akers, the health department’s director of policy and planning, told the Journal-World the health department team has spent the past two months since the ordinances were approved getting an application portal for tobacco retailers up and running and reaching out to retailers to provide guidance about obtaining a license.

The application portal has been live since mid-December, and Collie-Akers said as of Thursday the health department had received five applications. The hope is to get all applications in by the end of January, she said. In part, the application includes information that will help the health department describe the applicant’s retail environment. That includes categorizing the business as one of more than a dozen business types, from convenience stores to restaurants, and disclosing what types of tobacco products the business sells.

But that group of five applicants could only account for a small fraction of the retailers that ultimately will need to get licensed and haven’t already done so. Collie-Akers said the health department is aware of a list of businesses that have been licensed through the state, and the assumption is there will be some overlap between that list and the retailers that get licensed through the health department. Though it’s not all-encompassing, she said the state list is much longer than just five businesses — in fact, it’s estimated to include 85 of them. Collie-Akers said the health department hopes the licensing procedures will help to develop a complete list of all tobacco retailers in the city.

That means the community should expect some “modest flexibility” in the policy’s first year when it comes to any noncompliance penalties, Collie-Akers said.

“We’re still trying to make sure that we reach retailers and what have you,” Collie-Akers said. “… But beyond that, the existing policy does have penalties for operating without a license. We don’t anticipate those being put into effect or us proceeding with us pursuing that until we can say really, fully that we have done what we could to get them to be licensed and that (noncompliance) isn’t a reflection of a new process; that it’s a reflection of choosing not to apply.”

But that doesn’t necessarily mean the health department won’t be keeping an eye on retailers for the policy’s first year. Tobacco retailers are still subject to at least two unannounced compliance checks per year to ensure they’re not selling to anyone under the age of 21. If they’re found to be violating the ordinance, the health department can conduct further unannounced follow-up compliance checks within three months of the violation.

Whenever the health department begins enforcing them, there are a number of penalties for failing those compliance checks. The health department has the authority to suspend a license for seven days following a second violation, 30 days for a third violation and three years for a fourth violation, provided those violations all take place within a span of 36 months. Violations also come with fines — $500 for the first violation, $750 for the second, and $1,000 each for the third and fourth.

“In anticipation of this possible policy, our team shadowed staff from (Lawrence social safety net nonprofit) DCCCA, who already do compliance checks for the state,” Collie-Akers added. “… We shadowed them so that we could prepare and learn about best practices for conducting compliance checks and have outlined that procedure for our staff. We’re feeling good that we’ll be able to do those in compliance with the best practices that we’ve seen in the field.”

Collie-Akers said the health department is available as a resource for anyone with questions about how the policy is supposed to work or whether their business is in compliance with the ordinance.

Retailers who need to apply can visit the health department’s website, and those with questions can email tobaccoretail@ldchealth.org.