Penalty for Selling Cigarettes to Minors Not Enough

Source from:  nz.news.yahoo.com Sunday May 25 05/26/2008

A one-month ban on selling cigarettes handed down to a Carterton dairy owner convicted of selling tobacco to a minor has been dismissed as a "slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket" by the Smokefree Coalition. Ishmar Dahya, of Carterton, was convicted of selling tobacco to someone under 18 in Masterton District Court on Monday. It was his second conviction in less than a year. The Health Ministry had asked the court to stop all sales of tobacco from the shop for three months, under the Smokefree Environments Act. Dahya's lawyer said his client would lose $7000 in profit if the court complied with the ministry's recommendation. Dahya was fined $750 with $130 court costs, and prohibited from selling cigarettes for one month. Smokefree Coalition director Mark Peck said more needed to be done to prevent shop owners from flouting the law. "A one-month ban is not enough -- it's a real shame the full three-month ban was not imposed. These retailers are selling a drug to our kids that is both addictive and deadly. "This Carterton retailer will be rubbing his hands with glee. After one month it's back to business as usual. Nothing has changed. "What chance is there he will change his behaviour and stop selling to kids? Stronger action from the courts is needed." Mr Peck said the minimal penalties given out by courts for the sale of cigarettes to under-18s provided little incentive for retailers to comply with the law. Mr Peck called for the Government to introduce a licensing requirement for cigarette retailers. "There are two benefits to licensing. "The first is that retailers will pay the cost for a team of enforcers sufficiently large enough to police the law, and the second is that a retailer who sells cigarettes to someone underage can have their license removed. "We need to make it clear to business-owners across New Zealand that our society will not tolerate people who expose our children to cigarettes." Enditem