COUNCIL ALTERS TOBACCO LICENSING ORDINANCE

A substantially altered tobacco licensing ordinance was given the go-ahead by the Cape Girardeau City Council Monday night.

The council approved on first reading a new ordinance outlining a graduated series of fines and other penalties for businesses found selling tobacco to minors.

The changes made reflect concerns that enforcing the new ordinance would demand too much from police officers.

The original ordinance would have required police to make at least two random compliance checks annually at locations where cigarettes are sold or distributed.

The ordinance would also have required compliance checks at at least half of all the locations licensed to sell cigarettes annually.

A memo by Police Chief Rick Hetzel, City Manager Michael Miller and city attorney Eric Cunningham points out that at least 133 businesses in the city are now licensed to sell tobacco products.

That would mean at least 67 compliance checks would have to be performed every year, and to enforce the graduated series of penalties, as many as 355 checks might be required.

The memo also points out that additional officers would need to be hired to handle the enforcement checks, and it would be difficult to recruit juveniles, as required, to participate in the compliance checks.

Record-keeping could also be a problem.

The ordinance approved Monday night does not contain the graduated scale of license suspensions, the enforcement check requirement or the scale of criminal penalties. Instead, the ordinance would leave enforcement checks up to the police chief's discretion and would require the city collector to suspend a merchant's license from seven business days to one year.

The ordinance does not contain a clause making it illegal for minors to be in possession of tobacco products. The Youth Advisory Council, which drew up the original ordinance, deleted that clause in February.

Enforcing such a clause, which could include penalties of fines or detention in a juvenile facility, would be too difficult, council members indicated.

"What if the parents say, we're not going to pay their fine?" Mayor Al Spradling III asked.

Spradling said it is up to parents to make sure their children don't take up smoking.

"The parents have to take responsibility," he said. "The government's got to stop being the watchdog of some of the social evils that may exist."