Youngsters target of anti-smoking law

CARSON CITY -- Minors would be fined $100 for lying about their age in order to buy cigarettes under the provisions of a bill pending in the Nevada Assembly.

AB549 passed Wednesday on a 24-17 vote, but Assemblyman Kelly Thomas, D-Las Vegas, employed a parliamentary maneuver to stall the bill. He hopes to tack on some last-minute amendments making the bill more strict.

The measure, introduced on behalf of Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, was watered down from its original form. Before it was amended in the Assembly Judiciary Committee, it would've outlawed candy cigarettes and toy tobacco products and made it illegal for anyone under 18 to posses, purchase or smoke tobacco.

The bill now simply bans cigarette vending machines except in gambling areas and bars, requires cigarettes to be sold in packs of at least 20, and prohibits children from misrepresenting their age if they try to buy smokes.

"It just doesn't seem to do anything," Thomas said. "We're going to look at what was amended out."

Thomas also said that the $100 fine isn't stiff enough to deter youths looking to buy tobacco products.

Supporters say the bill is needed - in any form - because the only people currently punished when minors get cigarettes are the store clerks who sell to them.

"Right now there is no statute that makes it illegal (for minors) to purchase cigarettes," said Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, one of the bill's supporters.

But he said it'll be a different story once youths are caught by store clerks and are hit with fines.

"I think the word will get out that you shouldn't buy at that store and they'll be less likely to buy cigarettes there," Carpenter said.

But opponents say even the softer version of AB549 is too harsh, won't keep tobacco products out of book bags and school lockers and will only serve to clog the courts.

"While I support the goal of not having kids smoke, I'm not sure putting them in the juvenile justice system is going to do that," said Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas.

"In Clark County, our jails are overcrowded with kids doing crimes that are unimaginable," she said. "Our system is overcrowded and this will be about as effective as Prohibition was."

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