The City's Tragedy That 'Must be Stopped'

Berkeley’s Tobacco Retail Licensure Law: Passed in 2003, the law requires Berkeley tobacco retailers to pay an annual license fee of $380 a year. If a retailer is found in violation of any tobacco control law, including illegal sales to minors, they may be prohibited from selling tobacco in their store for up to 30 days for a first offence, longer for additional offences. Clerks that sell to minors receive a $280 fine for a first offence, $500 for a second and $1,000 for a third. Cases of four violations in five years may cost guilty retailers the right to obtain a tobacco license at all.

The sting operation: On June 26 and 27, 2007, a fifteen year old female and sixteen year old male were sent out to 32 different stores across Berkeley with undercover police officers in an attempt to illegally purchase tobacco products. Of the 32 stores, six were found in violation, amounting to 18.75 percent of the stores targeted in comparison to April 2006’s sting of 5.8 percent. All six clerks involved in the sales received misdemeanor citations accompanied by $280 fines. Two stores are under a 20-day suspension of tobacco sales, a third has pulled products for 30 days and the remaining three have appealed the suspensions and have yet to clear their shelves of snuff pending a review by the city.

While nearly 19 percent of targeted stores seems to be quite a jump from last year’s roughly 6 percent, direct numbers wise it is a mere four stores difference. It also must be taken into consideration that between the years of 1996 and 2002, the rate was consistently between 36-38 percent. Since the passage of the Tobacco Retail Licensure Law in 2003, Berkeley has significantly curbed its incidences of tobacco sales to minors. This year’s increase could be attributed to a number of different factors—experienced decoys, green clerks, mistaking the undercover cop as the true tobacco customer, to name a few—however the bottom line is that there is most definitely still room for improvement.

The licensure law has made a considerable difference in decreasing tobacco sales to minors. A necessary next step is actively educating Berkeley merchants in these policies. Once the store managers are properly educated in Berkeley’s tobacco policies, they will become more adamant about properly training their clerks who are really the direct ones to blame. It is important that anyone who looks a day under 27 is asked to provide identification on the spot, and failing to produce the proper form of ID should immediately terminate the transaction. Many merchants are still allowing for simply providing an adequate birth date, but any middle or high schooler can do the math ahead of time and come fully prepared with a correct number.

In a country where 435,000 deaths every year are due to tobacco-related causes—a number totaling more than the combined death of all homicides, suicides, drug and alcohol deaths, car accidents, AIDS deaths and fire deaths—efforts to stop the problem surfacing in our youth is crucial. Berkeley still records smoking as the number one behavioral risk factor, associating 19 percent of its total deaths to smoking related fatalities. This tragedy must be stopped, and we can start by denying our middle and high schoolers the deadly habit one pack of cigs at a time.