Sell alcohol without a license and you're asking for huge trouble with the law. So why should tobacco be any different?
Don't be surprised to hear much talk like that in Orange County as the new millennium approaches. Tobacco sale licensing is gaining in popularity nationwide as anti-smoking forces step up the battle against the tobacco industry.
The primary goal of licensing is to help cripple tobacco sales to minors. A new study in Woodridge, Ill., shows that some merchant sales to minors decreased from 70% to just 5% after that city adopted such licensing.
Tobacco licensing was brought to my attention by Marilyn Cowan Pritchard, who heads the county's Tobacco Use Prevention Program. She isn't prepared to propose it here yet because it's new and her staff is still gathering data. But Pritchard sees its potential: "If the county adopted tobacco sale licensing, it could serve as a model for the cities here."
Consider this:
Tobacco sale licensing is now the law in 14 states.
In California, San Mateo County passed such a licensing ordinance a year ago. Contra Costa County recently passed a limited licensing law. And more than a dozen California cities within the last year have required retailers to secure tobacco licenses.
Also, a dozen other cities here--Los Angeles and San Francisco among them--have tobacco licensing ordinances under consideration.
"It's the best way to make sure you know who out there is selling," said Leslie Zellers, program director for the Technical Assistance Legal Center in Berkeley. That's a nonprofit group supported through state tobacco tax money, which advises government agencies on tobacco.
Licensing helps keep tabs on violators and where to target tobacco education programs. With violators facing two-year license suspensions in most of these cities, it's a strong deterrent to selling to minors, Zellers said.
All agree that youngsters with cigarettes remains a major issue. Pritchard points to studies that show 30% of school-age children experiment with smoking.
The latest to pass a tobacco sale licensing ordinance is San Ramon, in Contra Costa County. City Clerk Judy McFarlane said the City Council favored it unanimously after heavy lobbying by students from the city's California High School.
