SOUTH DEERFIELD — The minimum age to legally purchase tobacco in town has been raised from 18 years old to 21.
At a Board of Health meeting Wednesday, the three-member board unanimously voted to increase the legal purchasing age, joining 140 other towns across the state. Locally, other towns that’ve also increased their purchasing age include Sunderland, Whately, Montague, Greenfield, and, most recently in September, Northampton.
The new law also bans tobacco sales near schools, and sales of sweet “flavored tobacco” — which board members expressed could encourage children to purchase tobacco.
“We’re protecting our town and our own children, as well as our neighbors’ children,” said Board of Health Chairwoman Carolyn Shores Ness, noting, “these regulations will take affect Jan. 1, 2017.”
She said the new minimum age will be posted at all stores that sell tobacco.
Along with the new law, the board clarified regulation enforcement penalties and reduced the number of tobacco permits in town from ten, to eight. Currently, there are five active permits in town.
Shores Ness outlined the penalty for the first violation of the new regulations as a $100 fine. If a second violation happens within two years, tobacco sales could be suspended for a week and the vendor will have to pay $200. Finally, she continued, a third violation will result in a $300 fine; in addition, tobacco sales will be suspended for 30 days.
“I think it’s good,” Selectman Henry “Kip” Komosa said. “It helps protect young people in the community. I’ve seen it so many times — kids just don’t know how bad this is. It sneaks up, and then it’s too late.”
Statewide movement toward an age-21 tobacco purchasing age
Earlier this year in April, the state Senate passed a bill 32-2 that, if approved by the House and Governor — the next step in the process — would increase the minimum age to purchase tobacco statewide to 21. Currently, Hawaii is the only state that’s passed such a law.
According to an Associated Press article published in The Recorder on April 28, “the bill, which moves to the House after being approved on a 32-2 vote, also sets new regulations for electronic cigarettes including a ban on vaping in places where smoking is otherwise prohibited. It would also ban the sale of tobacco in pharmacies and other health care facilities.”
According to the national campaign organization Preventing Tobacco Addiction Foundation, the first city in Massachusetts to raise its purchasing age was Needham, “where the tobacco age was set at 21 in 2005.”
The nonprofit’s website notes, “the result was an immediate, significant drop in both current use and frequent use of cigarettes among youth, compared to both their previous rate, and the rates of surrounding communities.”
State bill that could increase tobacco age by Andy Christian on Scribd