Oxford County Public Health Hires teens to catch local businesses selling tobacco to youth.
Oxford County Public Health recently completed 96 youth access checks to see if local businesses were selling cigarettes to minors.
Of the 96 checks they did, only one business was charged with selling tobacco products to minors. The County does this every year twice a year and last year they handed out 13 charges compared to 14 in 2013. Manager of Health Protection Peter Haywood says they are actually pretty happy with the numbers this year and is always good to see a 99 percent compliance rate.
"We actually have an excellent compliance rate with our tobacco vendors, typically we have a 90 percent range when it comes to compliance for youth access."
Haywood says they actually hire teenagers to be youth test shoppers during the process.
"A youth test shopper will go out with a tobacco enforcer and attempts to purchase tobacco from a tobacco and if the sale is successful the youth test shopper returns to the tobacco enforcement officer who gathers the evidence and information and proceeds to investigate the situation."
The fine for selling tobacco to a youth is $300.
Heywood does encourage anyone who wants more information on this to attend a vendor education session happening on October 13 at Oxford County Public Health and Emergency Services which is done through the Smoke Free Ontario legislation.
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