Tobacco sting protects youth
Recent studies from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention show a drop in cigarette use and part of that has to do with accessibility.
Marissa Fregoso, 19, stays active in her community by volunteering, but instead of soup kitchens or animal shelters, she buys tobacco products; or at least she tries.
Fregoso is a decoy operative for Riverside County Department of Environmental Health’s Retail Tobacco Permitting Program. The department sends volunteers who are under the legal age of 21 with inspectors to tobacco retail locations within their enforcement for sting operations.
“We go into liquor stores, smoke shops, some grocery stores even, doughnut shops, and I just go in and buy gum, a bag of chips-something like that-and then I ask for a pack of cigarettes or Swisher Sweets just to see if they would sell with no ID,” Fregoso said.
If and when volunteers are asked for identification, they are told to say they left it somewhere or lost it. If there’s a sale, an inspector goes back into the location with a citation.
“This is an administrative citation. It is not a court citation, so it’s basically a fine, but what also comes along with that is we suspend their permit to sell tobacco, and how long that violation takes place for depends on what violation.”
Dottie Merkie, the program chief for Riverside County Department of Environmental Health says volunteers are typically high school students looking for community service hours. The decoys are told to attempt purchases for a variety of tobacco products.
“It can be a pipe, it can be rolling paper, it can be anything that can have tobacco in it. If it has any sort of nicotine in it then it’s considered tobacco or if it has tobacco leaves in it,” Merkie said.
In an effort to see how the decoy operation actually works, we sent in Fregoso with a hidden camera. After four hours of undercover work, Fregoso had one sale.
“I just walked straight up to the register, and I didn’t buy anything else with it, and I just asked if I could buy a pack of Camel Crushes. He was nice. He didn’t question me on anything. He didn’t ask my age or ID. He just gave me the total,” Fregoso said, recounting the purchase.
After the sale, CBS Local 2’s Kelley Moody confronted the sales employee with an inspector. He was understanding, but declined to speak with CBS Local 2 in an interview.
The citation issued was for two counts: one for not asking for identification, and one for selling to the decoy, for a total of $200, plus the cost to reapply for a new permit for tobacco product sales, $482, and the loss of sales during the time the permit is suspended, which will only be one day since this is the business’ first offense.
“The reason it’s effective is because it hits tobacco retailers in the pocketbook, so if it hurts them financially, then I think it gives them a little bit more of an incentive to make sure that they and their employees are doing the right thing and making sure they’re checking for identification for every single sale,” Merkie said.
Merkie says they’re hoping to expand their work to more cities in the Coachella Valley to keep tobacco products out of the hands of local youth.
