Tobacco sales to minors rise, but still low
By Adrienne Ancheta
Advertiser Staff Writer
After the percentage of stores selling tobacco to minors decreased for four years, this year saw a slight increase, according to a survey released yesterday by the Department of Health.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
But the percentage of stores in violation still remains below federal regulations and is far lower than the percentage in 1996, health officials said.
In Soon Baik, left, and wife Jong Yup, owners of Chubby's Pantry in Pearl City, post purchase eligibility birth years.
The survey, a joint project of the Department of Health's Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division and the University of Hawai'i's Cancer Research Center, found that 7.7 percent of the 221 stores surveyed sold cigarettes to minors (children under 18 years old).
The survey was done to comply with requirements in the federal Public Health Service Act of 1993. The act requires states to show a less than 20 percent rate of tobacco sales to minors or the state will lose more than $3 million in federal money for drug prevention programs.
The state has one of the three lowest rates in the nation, officials said.
As part of the survey, a team of volunteers between 15 and 17 years old attempted to buy tobacco from stores in the spring without identification, but told their true age when asked.
Maui County stores had the highest noncompliance rate of 11 percent, followed by Kaua'i and Hawai'i counties (10 percent each) and Ho-nolulu (7 percent), according to the survey results. Rates in all counties except Honolulu were up from last year.
In 2000, 7 percent of 300 stores surveyed sold to minors. The rates had steadily decreased from 44 percent in 1996.
"We still have some issues to address," said Department of Health director Bruce Anderson. A top concern for the department is educating store clerks about state laws, Anderson said.
Results of the survey followed the release of the 2000 Hawai'i Youth Tobacco Survey, presented Monday by the health department to the Board of Education. That survey, administered to 1,045 public middle school and 1,511 public high school students, found that the percentage of students here who think cigarette smokers look cool and have more friends is greater than nationwide statistics.
It also showed that cigarette use in Hawai'i dropped from 1999 from 67.2 percent of high school students and 41.5 percent of middle school students to 63.3 percent and 38.4 percent, respectively, in 2000.
The Department of Health yesterday also released a second study on the percentage of stores selling tobacco to minors. That study was done by the department with the help of Honolulu and Neighbor Island police departments and covered all stores selling tobacco. It showed a higher percentage of stores selling tobacco to minors than the joint survey with the Cancer Research Center — 26.1 percent — but was lower than a rate of 28.4 percent in last year's study.
In the health department-police survey, youth volunteers went to 1,129 stores with undercover police officers and presented identification when asked. Police then issued a citation to clerks who sold tobacco to the minor.
Elaine Wilson, chief of the health department's Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division, said another way to deter clerks from selling to minors may be to cite not just the clerk, but the store and the owner.
"If the clerk just took 30 more seconds (to check identification), we could get (the rate of sales to minors) down without any money," she said.
"We need to get creative and get the community and parents concerned," said Karen Glanz of the Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i.
