City officials are moving forward with a plan to ensure any access minors might have to tobacco products behind the counter is cut off. On Monday night, City Council voted unanimously to proceed with the preparation of an ordinance that would, if formally adopted at a future meeting, require that tobacco retailers pay to obtain an annual license through the city.
Under the proposed ordinance, store owners would also be required to conduct yearly training to ensure underage youth don’t have access to tobacco, at least at local stores. The city’s licensing fee would be set at $100, paid annually, and that revenue would specifically fund police-led sting operations where underage decoys test whether tobacco sellers are following the law.
If a decoy gets his or her hands on a pack of cigarettes without being asked by the cashier for identification, the store owner would be held responsible for a civil penalty and must pay a fine, which has not yet been determined—but the fines will be stiff.
“I would have no problem charging $5,000 for the first violation,” said Council Member Dion Bracco. “If they don’t want to pay it, they give up their license. Alcohol is regulated and the penalties are so harsh most of them don’t dare sell to minors. They make sure their employees are trained and they’re not selling to minors because they only get a couple chances before they lose their license—something they paid a lot of money for. Let’s take a lesson from the liquor industry.”
“This is not punishment. This is just to put teeth into a law that says it’s illegal to sell cigarettes to minors,” added Council Member Peter Arellano.
The Gilroy Police Department typically conducts two or three sting operations to check compliance with state law, but under the ordinance, each fee paid by tobacco vendors would pay for increased enforcement.
If the ordinance is adopted as proposed, police will conduct sting operations three times a year targeting one-third of businesses that sell tobacco, according to Senior Planner Stan Ketchum.
But the council’s decision wasn’t well received by everyone in attendance. Two tobacco retailers and a representative of the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce spoke during the public comment period and appealed to the council to reconsider elements of the proposed ordinance.
In 20 years, JB Liquors store owner Tareq Suleman said he’s never been cited for selling tobacco or alcohol to underage customers. He asked the council to stomp out the ordinance, just like they did in 2012 when a similar ordinance was thrown out.
“The state gives us a license; the county gives us a license and the city gives us a license,” Suleman said. “How many licenses do we need? When is it going to stop?”
Currently, tobacco dealers across the Golden State must pay the Board of Equalization a one-time fee of $100 to sell commercially—and that state license must be renewed each year.
Tobacco products alone make up 30 to 40 percent of all sales at the Chevron on Leavesley Road, according to owner Paul Henry. He explained that retailers want to be responsible, but imposing fines on business owners isn’t the right way to reduce underage smoking.
“We hire employees to do the job of checking the IDs and we train them on that. They go through rigorous training every six months,” Henry said. “For a retailer, it’s a huge fine for a mistake that’s being done by the employees, and I know they get $8 or $9 an hour, but we would like to have the responsibility on the employee. That should hold them accountable so that they don’t sell cigarettes to minors.”
As it stands now, if cashiers are cited for selling tobacco to a minor in California, they are on the hook for paying the fine. But others commented that by shifting the responsibility to the store owner, they will be more inclined to train their employees on a consistent basis.
“Retailers that sell tobacco are part of the problem, whether they intend to be or not, and they should be part of the solution,” said Angelina Aguirre, of Gilroy, during the public comment period.
“I think we need to put a sanction in place that not just holds the staff accountable, but holds the owners accountable. All of us are responsible for our employees and we want to incentivize store owners training and monitoring their employees,” added Community Solutions CEO Erin O’Brien, a Gilroy nonprofit that employs more than 200, during the meeting. O’Brien said tobacco is a product with one of the highest profit margins, and profit should be closely tied with a sense of responsibility.
While sales may be extremely profitable for big tobacco, Suleman said it’s a different story for small businesses like his—it’s hard to make ends meet as it is, he said.
Chamber President and CEO Mark Turner pointed out that a majority of underage youth get tobacco products from those who are already of legal age, citing a study by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
“Numerous studies found that making the act of obtaining cigarettes as inconvenient, as difficult and as expensive as possible reduces teen smoking. If this is about reducing teen smoking, I think we should go with that strategy and not just implement a fee on those people who are selling a legal product legally,” he said. “I think we need to move beyond the notion that penalizing those who are compliant will somehow bring those who are non-compliant in line. It never works.”
If the ordinance is adopted as proposed, new vendors would be prohibited from opening up shop near a school or park. Mayor Don Gage clarified that while it was originally a topic of discussion, existing tobacco retailers located within 1,000-feet of those prohibited areas will be grandfathered in.
The ordinance will be introduced to the council at an upcoming meeting, and it will return to the dais for formal adoption. If it’s approved, the ordinance will become part of the penal code and will go into effect 30 days from adoption.
Earlier this year, Morgan Hill implemented a similar ordinance and charges the tobacco retailers $145 annually to operate.
