Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2003 | 8:58 a.m.
Vending industry operators and companies that sell cigarettes out of machines say a new state law that becomes effective today to stem youth access to tobacco should mean little or no change in the way they do business.
The companies say they have had six months to come into compliance with the change in state law that allows vending machines in public areas only if minors are prohibited from loitering in those sections.
Moreover, the purveyors of tobacco say they have had several years to follow unwritten but strongly implied direction from the Nevada attorney general's office to cut off the flow of cigarettes to youths.
"The new law is going to have zero impact on our industry because the attorney general has done a good job for the last five years getting out the word," said Jamie Costello, president of Southwest Services, a vending company that has about 200 cigarette machines in Southern Nevada businesses.
"For so long we have been careful of where we put cigarette vending machines. I'm confident that our clients our in compliance. Also, I have far fewer cigarette machines in operation today than I did five years ago."
Costello said long ago cigarette manufacturers and distributors gave up on offering vending companies incentives to use the machines for promotion in the wake of crackdowns against their easy accessibility to minors.
Lesley Pittman, spokeswoman for Stations Casinos, which has four cigarette vending machines in each of its larger properties in Southern Nevada, said the effort to become compliant was not difficult.
"It was a matter of moving the machines from the registration area and other high-traffic areas to the bars and casino areas," she said. "The spirit of the law is to keep cigarettes out of the hands of underage people, and we certainly want to cooperate with that."
Pittman said Stations Casinos has been in compliance with the new law for about two months and prior to that did not have its cigarette machines in locations such as arcades and supervised children's play areas in the resorts.
"We had six months to get into compliance," she said referring to the law's passage at this year's Legislature. "It was a very easy edict and it was the right thing to do."
Part of the new law forbids cigarette machines from vending additional items such as chewing gum, candy or other things minors can legally purchase, giving them no legitimate reason to be hanging around the machines.
In a statement earlier this month, Attorney General Brian Sandoval urged businesses that were not in compliance with the law to get their cigarette machines into adult-access-only areas.
"One of the easiest ways for Nevada's children to obtain cigarettes is from vending machines that are accessible to them," Sandoval said. "Senate Bill 315 will reduce that possibility. The efforts since 1995 have reduced underaged purchase rates by nearly half. Now we will do even better."
Other successful programs include the "We Card" promotion at stores, he said.
On the eve of the new law going into effect, Sandoval said the "tobacco youth buy rate" has dropped to 11.4 percent, down from 18 percent last year. The tobacco youth buy rate is the percentage of successful purchases out of attempts by underage youth.
The most recent figures are the lowest since the attorney general's office began enforcing the state law prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors in 1995. In 1994 the underage buy rate was 64 percent, Sandoval said.
The federal government requires states to enforce laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors or risk losing 40 percent of their federal substance abuse grant.
Nevada receives more than $13 million a year in substance abuse program money.
In related news, Nevada, along with attorneys general from 42 other states, announced Tuesday an agreement with Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer and employer, to implement new policies and procedures to reduce tobacco sales to minors in its 3,400 stores nationwide.
The agreement includes training employees on laws and policies restricting tobacco sales to minors, checking identification of any person purchasing tobacco products if they appear to be less than 27 years old and accepting just valid government-issued photo identification cars as proof of age.
The agreement also will prohibit cigarette vending machines in Wal-Mart stores.
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