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Grand Forks Herald Tuesday, March 31, 1998 Rural areas more likely to sell teens cigarettes: 30 percent of N.D. retailers sell to teens, according to survey By Sue Ellyn Scaletta Herald Staff Writer _______________________________________________________________

Rural retailers are almost three times as likely to sell tobacco to
underage youth as those in larger cities, a new North Dakota Human
Services Department survey indicates.
Statewide, 29.8 percent of retailers sold cigarettes to one of two 16-
year-old research assistants who conducted compliance checks at 410 ran-
domly selected sites across the state.  Dr. Thomas Radecki of Doctors
and Lawyers for Tobacco-Free Youth supervised the activity.
But only 16 percent of clerks in 11 cities with population of more
than 5,000 sold to the teens, compared with 46 percent in smaller communities.
"I think that reflects the work of tobacco prevention coalitions," said
Tom Wirtz, coordinator of the DHS Substance abuse prevention division.
He said such coalitions promote eduction programs, stronger ordinances
and local enforcement measures that have curbed sales of tobacco to youth.
"That has been indicated in other surveys," said Jule Gronhovd of the
Grand Forks Public Health Department.  "The rate is less in larger citites that
do their own compliance checks and retailer education programs."
Grand Forks was one of the first North Dakota cities to pass and en-
force ordinances that penalize businesses as well as individual clerks who sell
tobacco to teens.  The city also banned cigarette vending machines in most
places.
The 29.8 percent statewide average was down slightly from 31.3 percent
in a similar 1996 survey.  But it was significantly less than the 72 percent reported
in the first such survey in 1994.
"The real key is to educate merchants so that all their sales clerks are aware
of the law and the consequences of not observing it," Wirtz said.

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