LAKEPORT – In an effort to fight the easy access the county's young people have to tobacco products, the Lake County Tobacco Coalition is proposing a new retail licensing program, and they'd like to start the program in the city of Lakeport.
Coalition members were on hand for a presentation to the Lakeport City Council on Tuesday that outlined the proposed program and how it would work.
Businessman and coalition member Lowell Grant told the council that the reason for taking the step is simple – minors have no trouble getting their hands on tobacco, and there's no incentive for law enforcement to enforce sales regulation.
Grant said tobacco kills more than 440,000 people annually. The roots of that major health issue start when people are younger. “Very rarely does an adult start smoking,” said Grant. “It happens when you're 16.”
Having lost his own mother to lung cancer from second-hand smoke, and his father to a heart attack after years of smoking, Grant said, “Smoking has kind of been an issue for me my whole life.”
Grant said US tobacco companies engineer their cigarettes to be more addictive and, therefore, more deadly.
City Clerk Janel Chapman, a coalition member, presented a PowerPoint on the proposal, first going over current state laws, which prohibit selling or otherwise furnishing tobacco products to minors. “They're not all being enforced as they should,” she said.
AB 71, passed in 2003, was meant to reduce cigarette smuggling and loss of tobacco tax revenues, but that law only suspends a retailer's license after they've been convicted of selling to minors four times in one year, Chapman explained.
She said the law doesn't deter retailers from selling to minors. The state's enforcement program also isn't adequate, only conducting 2,500 compliance checks a year, which amounts to about 3 percent of the state's 80,000 tobacco retailers. State law also doesn't provide funding for the programs.
Chapman said enforcement is especially difficult in rural areas, where resources are less, and therefore the number of young smokers is higher.
However, state law doesn't preempt local government from creating their own laws and enforcement programs, such as the one the coalition is proposing, Chapman noted.
Chapman said 86.4 percent of Californians are nonsmokers. Second-hand smoke contains 4,800 chemical compounds, 69 of which are known as carcinogens. She said tobacco kills more people than murders, suicides, driving under the influence and HIV combined.
Locally, 43.6 percent of Lake County's tobacco retailers have sold products to minors in the period covered by the 2005-08 Youth Purchase Survey, said Chapman. Those numbers are especially concerning since almost all smokers start in their teens, and every day nearly 6,000 children under age 18 start smoking.
To help reduce those numbers, Chapman said the coalition is proposing that the city adopt an ordinance that would provide for the licensing of tobacco retailers in the city.
The ordinance would require retailers to apply annually to be licensed. Those that sold tobacco to minors could have their licenses revoked if they violated the law repeatedly.
“We hope that through this fewer youth will start smoking,” she said, adding that it also sends a message to children that adults are concerned about them smoking.
Costs to administer the program would include reviewing and approving licensing applications, collecting and accounting fees and tracking applications.
Chapman said there also would be operational costs for youth decoy operations conducted by law enforcement.
Based on an estimate of 12 stings a year, the potential costs would be $9,442, but that would be covered by a fee that hasn't yet been determined, Chapman said.
Because the program would pay for itself, Chapman said there would be no negative financial implications for the city.
“Most of these fees will all be recoverable by the merchants through the tobacco companies,” she said. Merchants would have to add only half a cent per pack of cigarettes sold to cover the cost.
The positives would be the creation of a funding stream to deal with tobacco retailers, and fewer teens smoking, said Chapman.
The coalition conducted a public opinion survey that found that 51 percent of people thought it was easy for youth under age 18 to get tobacco products in the city of Lakeport, higher than Clearlake (40%) and the county (50%), Chapman reported.
The survey also found that 80 percent of those surveyed thought retailers should be licensed, she added.
Lakeport wouldn't be alone if it adopted such an ordinance – Chapman said 63 other California cities currently have tobacco licensing ordinances in places, as do four counties.
Chapman said the coalition is asking for the council to discuss implementing and ordinance establishing a retail licensing program. Council members Bob Rumfelt and Suzanne Lyons said they were supportive of the idea, with Councilman Jim Irwin saying he was not.
Mayor Ron Bertsch said he felt it was law enforcement's job to enforce current laws. Grant told the council that law enforcement already is maxed out in its current duties.
Interim City Manager and Police Chief Kevin Burke said the only way to run the kind of sting operations Chapman mentioned is undercover, which requires overtime. Rumfelt pointed out that the program would help cover those costs.
He added that the cost of cigarettes now should be already be “astronomical.” Grant said the true cost of a pack of cigarettes to society is estimated to be about $20 a pack. He said that 20 percent of forest fires are caused by cigarettes.
Rumfelt, who had worked in a tobacco education program while in law enforcement, said despite that his own daughter – then 15 – started smoking, and it took her about 12 years to finally quit. “I understand the grip tobacco can have on you.”
Chapman said the ordinance would be drafted with the help of the police department. Burke said that the proposed ordinance would allow the council to set its annual licensing fee by resolution.
Burke noted that his department wouldn't be able to do the estimated 12 stings annually that Chapman's presentation mentioned.
Grant said cigarettes are as addictive as heroin, and he wishes they were taken as seriously.
Rumfelt pointed out that local rancherias have smoke shops, where people will be able to buy tobacco cheaper than in the city if the ordinance is passed.
“The fact is, we're never going to make it perfect, but we can start to make it better,” said Grant. “It's got to start somewhere and we're hoping it starts here.”
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