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Rod Minott of KCTS-Seattle updates a report we first aired last fall about selling cigarettes to teens and new government rules to prevent under-age smoking.

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JIM LEHRER: Now, the new government rules to prevent under-age smoking. Rod Minott of KCTS-Seattle updates a report we first aired last fall.

WOMAN: Okay. Well, how many of you think a retailer would need to check their ID to know for sure.

ROD MINOTT: For the past two weeks the Food & Drug Administration has been holding teleconferences in theaters across the country to teach retailers how to conform to the new federal rules governing tobacco sales.

WOMAN: Now, let's look at a few more typical situations and see how sales associates can comply with the FDA rule.

ROD MINOTT: Those who sell cigarettes must now make sure the buyers are over age 18. And they must check photo ID's of anyone under 27 years of age. Skits were used to get those messages across.

CLERK: (skit) Okay. Will that be it?

BOY: Pack of these?

CLERK: Can I see some photo ID?

BOY: I don't have my ID with me.

CLERK: I can't sell you any tobacco products unless you have an idea, okay?

BOY: Come on, man. Give me a break.

CLERK: Sorry.

ROD MINOTT: Anti-smoking groups say they will test the retailers by sending out under-age teens to buy cigarettes. In Washington state local health departments have been doing just that for years.

MAN AT COUNTER: Hi.

YOUNG GIRL: Can I get a pack of Camel filters?

MAN AT COUNTER: Sure. With or without the box?

YOUNG GIRL: Without.

ROD MINOTT: Recruited by local health departments, these volunteers are part of a special sting team in Seattle, searching out stores that sell cigarettes illegally to minors.

MAN AT COUNTER: Do you have ID?

YOUNG GIRL: No.

MAN AT COUNTER: I should see some ID. Do you have ID?

YOUNG GIRL: No.

MAN AT COUNTER: In your vehicle?

YOUNG GIRL: No.

MAN AT COUNTER: Sorry.

YOUNG GIRL: Okay. Thanks.

ROD MINOTT: We were invited along as they conducted their undercover work. While the clerk at this store finally refused to sell the 16-year-old Vanessa Grant, he later still got some advice from a public health agent.

AGENT: Just a little bit of constructive criticism. Vanessa did say that she thought that you could have been a little bit stronger and go ahead and boot kids out of the store, tell ‘em, we're not going to sell to you without ID.

ROD MINOTT: Seattle boasts one of the largest and most aggressive sting programs in the country, with 2200 compliance checks expected this year.

GREG HEWETT, Tobacco Prevention Program: Well, in the past month or so these are part of the contraband evidence that we acquire from merchants selling to our teens out there.

ROD MINOTT: Greg Hewett heads Seattle's youth anti-tobacco program.

GREG HEWETT: You know, 10 years ago for a teenager in King County, they had about a 66 percent chance of buying cigarettes in any outlets that they went into, any Safeway store, Payless store, gas station, and we've turned that around to the point where only--they're going to be successful in obtaining those cigarettes only 16 percent of the time.

ROD MINOTT: Washington State has had a law on the books banning sales of tobacco to minors since the 1800's. But according to Steve Bowman of the state's public health department, the law was largely ignored.

STEPHEN BOWMAN, Department of Public Health: Unfortunately, that was rarely, if ever, enforced, and it was mainly left up to local law enforcement to, you know, issue a misdemeanor violation, actually a criminal penalty for selling to a minor. We know very few instances where that was really being done.

ROD MINOTT: That all changed in 1993, when the state toughened its youth tobacco laws. Besides setting up the sting operations, the new law set up penalties for stores found in violation. They can be fined or even lose their license. The legislation also restricted vending machines to bars and taverns that are considered out of reach of minors. Bowman said the get-tough approach was needed to prevent kids from making smoking a habit.

STEPHEN BOWMAN: Roughly 90 percent of adult smokers started during their teen years sometime before the age of 20. And another about 50 percent of adult smokers started by the age of 14, so we're not talking about kids that--approaching their 18th birthday decided that they wanted to try a cigarette. We're talking about kids that are starting at, you know, eleven, twelve, thirteen years of age.

ROD MINOTT: Washington's laws may become a model for other states as they seek to conform to new federal mandates. Those mandates, issued by President Clinton and the Congress, say that states must curb illegal sales of tobacco to teens, or risk losing millions of dollars in federal money for drug and alcohol abuse programs. According to a recent report by the federal Centers for Disease Control, many states have a long way to go. In 1995, 77 percent of the teens surveyed who smoke succeeded in buying their cigarettes from a store. It's a fact backed up by teen smokers like these 16 year olds.

TEEN: For me? Really easy. My older sister smokes so we always--we buy them together and stuff.

TEEN: Sometimes our friends who are 16 who look they're older--they get cigarettes, you know, in cars, you know. And sometimes we'll have them do it.

ROD MINOTT: Federal studies also show smoking among teens is on the rise, with more than 3,000 young people picking up a habit every day. Health advocates say sting operations are key to discouraging those new smokers, and so in Seattle, the stings continue. At this store, a clerk sold 16-year-old Grant a pack of cigarettes.

VANESSA GRANT, Seattle Sting Team: I just went in there and asked for Camel filters, and he got them without asking any questions. He didn't say anything at all actually, except for the price.

SPOKESMAN: He sold them to you right away?

VANESSA GRANT: Right.

SPOKESMAN: He didn't ask for any ID?

VANESSA GRANT: No. No questions at all.

ROD MINOTT: Later, after bagging and photographing the evidence, the team returned to confront the clerk.

SPOKESMAN: What I did was I sent her in to try and buy a pack of cigarettes, and she was successful in obtaining a pack of Camel filters, and you did not ask her for her ID, or you did not ask her, her age.

MAN: She looks 18.

SPOKESMAN: You think she looks 18?

MAN: Yeah. And she had ID.

SPOKESMAN: She has no ID with her.

MAN: Oh, well, she looks over 18.

SPOKESMAN: Do you think she looks over 18. Okay. That's besides the point. She's 16. You should have asked her for her ID.

ROD MINOTT: But store owners like Mark and Patty Nesby say that enforcement should be aimed at teens who smoke and not at the sellers of cigarettes.

PATTY NESBY, Store Owner: They are telling the kids in school that the businesses get punished, not you. And I feel that's wrong because they're telling them they don't get in trouble and they're breaking the law. I think that an 18 year old and a 16 year old and a 15 year old,, if they choose to smoke, they're going to get ‘em someplace anyway, and it's not my responsibility to police their actions.

MARK NESBY, Store Owner: We try to do the best we can.

PATTY NESBY: And we try to do the best that we can.

ROD MINOTT: The Nesbys also believe that the stings give teenagers an unhealthy incentive to trap store owners.

PATTY NESBY: It almost makes a challenge and a game out of it to them I feel.

MARK NESBY: To see who they can catch or entrap into selling tobacco.

SPOKESMAN: (meeting) The first question is why are we conducting compliance checks? Well, first of all--

ROD MINOTT: But the state says it does everything it can to make sure that teenage volunteers avoid entrapping the sellers. Guidelines are drilled into recruits at training sessions.

SPOKESMAN: Missy, you look--I'm not picking on you or anything, but you look really young, so you would be a good person for us to use on the compliance checks because you don't look you'd be trying to misrepresent your age. Jill, on the other hand, you look like a really mature person, which is a compliment, but you'd probably have more sales, and we might not want to use you as much because of the hazards of entrapment.

OTHER SPOKESMAN: Do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give in this hearing will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

YOUNG MAN: I do.

ROD MINOTT: Tobacco sting proponents also point out that stores can appeal their fines at special hearings. This store owner was appealing a second violation which carried a $300 fine. In cross-examination, he insinuated that his undercover teen accuser enjoyed pressuring stores into making illegal sales.

SPOKESMAN: When you go through, go through your procedure, do you get excited?

YOUNG MAN: No.

SPOKESMAN: Do you ever lick your lips?

YOUNG MAN: No.

SPOKESMAN: How do you keep yourself under control?

YOUNG MAN: It's not difficult. I'm just making sure that he doesn't sell to minors, so, therefore keeping tobacco out of the hands of minors and preventing the addiction of use to tobacco. I, I have no incentive to make a purchase.

ROD MINOTT: The judge later upheld the store owner's fine, but tobacco sting critics vow they'll soon appeal on another front, the state legislature. They plan to lobby lawmakers for changes that would allow stores to police themselves. Hank Armour is a convenience store owner and president of the Washington State Association of Neighborhood Stores.

HANK ARMOUR, Convenience Store Lobbyist: First of all, I think that stores can measure their own compliance much more frequently. It would be much more cost effective to do that, and, again, it'd be a voluntary program. It's something that now responsible companies are prohibited from doing, and I see no purpose of that. They should have the opportunity to test their own compliance performance.

ROD MINOTT: But Bowman of the Health Department says self-policing won't work.

STEPHEN BOWMAN, Department of Public Health: Tobacco revenue, actually sales for a convenience store typically is up to about 25 percent of the profit for a convenience store. So this is real money for a convenience store and for a retailer, and so obviously without some kind of pressure from an external, you know, enforcement source, you know, we're not going to see a major change. I think we have because of the law.

SPOKESMAN: (talking to clerk) Why did yo sell the cigarettes?

CLERK: I want--

ROD MINOTT: Back at the hilltop market, the clerk who sold a pack of 16 year old Grant at first didn't want to say why he broke the law.

CLERK: It's my mistake.

ROD MINOTT: He later said he'd shown bad judgment and had learned his lesson. As it continued on to its next tobacco shop, the sting team promised it would soon be back to make sure the clerk stuck to his pledge. And with 25 percent more stings planned next year in Seattle, the teens expect to stay very busy catching more illegal cigarette sales.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Shields & Gigot, plus Kohut, and the Swiss Holocaust fund story.

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