Show All Answers

1. What is the legal age for purchasing cigarettes or smokeless tobacco?

Purchasers of tobacco products in the state of Oregon must be at least 21 years of age.

2. What are retailers required to do to ensure that customers are of legal age to purchase tobacco?

Retail clerks must ask to see a young person’s identification prior to selling them tobacco products. When examining the ID, retail clerks must also take the time to accurately calculate the age of the young person attempting to purchase tobacco. Since it is often difficult to determine a young person’s age by the way they look or dress, most stores institute policies requiring their employees to ask for ID any time a person appears to look 27 years of age or younger. Oregon driver’s licenses now have the word MINOR in large red letters that run down the side of the license. This should make it much easier for clerks to correctly identify the age of a customer.

3. Can a retailer sell to a child whose parent sends the child into a store to buy tobacco products for the parent?

No. The law prohibits retailers from selling tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18. Parents need to purchase tobacco products for themselves.

4. What should a salesclerk do when the clerk suspects that a customer’s ID is fake or has been altered?

If a clerk/retailer suspects that an ID is unreliable, the clerk/retailer should refuse the sale. Fake ID cards may be difficult to detect, but many fake cards are obvious due to their poor quality. Clerks should be instructed to pay particular attention to the look and feel of the ID. The photo on the ID should match the person using the ID. ID cards with erasure marks, type that doesn’t line up, damaged paper surface and/or information pasted onto them should be considered suspect.

5. Is a retailer responsible for preventing parents or other adults from purchasing tobacco products for minors?

No. While the retailer is free to refuse the sale, retailers are only required to verify the age of the purchaser prior to making the sale.

6. What if the minor becomes angry when I, as a retailer, refuse to sell tobacco?

Explain to him or her that you and the store could be held responsible for selling tobacco products to persons under the age of 18. Stores who sell tobacco products to minors will receive civil penalties and may have their license to sell tobacco suspended or revoked for repeat offenses.

7. What is a compliance check and how will it work?

The Lane County Health Department, in partnership with the Oregon State Police, will be coordinating compliance checks. The Oregon State Police hire and train youth to enter stores and attempt to purchase a tobacco product, as a part of the State of Oregon’s SYNAR compliance checks. These youth will be carrying their own valid ID, indicating that they are underage, and will be instructed to produce the ID for the clerk, when asked for it. If the clerk complies with the law and refuses the illegal sale, the compliance check ends.
In the event that a clerk makes an illegal sale, a representative of the Lane County Health Department will approach the clerk in order to gather information, including employee training verification forms, needed by the City of Eugene to determine the type of civil penalty to be levied against the licensee. If a “manager on duty” is present, the Health Department representative will ask to work with that individual, rather than the clerk, in order to minimize the disruption to the business.

8. Who is responsible under the regulations: the employer or the sales clerk?

The employer or license holder is held responsible for Eugene Code violations. In this way, the law is similar to other laws effecting public health and safety. For example, the retailer generally is responsible when an employee’s failure to follow health and sanitary codes results in a citation. Currently, Oregon State law does allow law enforcement officials to cite and fine offending clerks up to $500.

9. For a retail establishment that has failed the first compliance check, how much time will elapse between when the violation occurred and when a second compliance check will be completed?

This is up to the discretion of the Health Department. A second compliance check could occur within a few weeks of the first violation or not for several months.

10. Will the City/Health Department notify retailers who are found to be in compliance with the new ordinance?

The City of Eugene business license office will track all compliance checks, regardless of whether the store passed or failed the check. This will be public information. Retailers will be notified when a clerk passes a compliance check. For more information on compliance checks contact the business license office at 541-682-5379.

11. Do the penalties escalate with continued violations?

The city ordinance is written in such a way that penalties increase if the last violation occurs within 24 months of a subsequent violation.

12. What happens if a retailer fails to pay the fine levied by the city?

If a licensee fails to pay the imposed fine within 30 days of the date imposed, the city shall suspend the licensee’s tobacco products retail license until such time that the fine is fully paid.

13. What can a manager do to assure that his/her employees uphold the Law?

Find a comprehensive answer to this question.