Jump to full article: Brockton (MA) Enterprise, 2006-06-25
Author: Tim Grace, Enterprise staff writer
Intro: Forty cents will buy a single cigarette from Brockton's Mutual gas station at 306 Center St., no questions asked.
Never mind that individual cigarette sales are illegal in Massachusetts.
On Saturday afternoon, the store clerk didn't hesitate when asked to sell one Newport to a middle-aged reporter. Earlier in the week, a group of teenage girls said they had no trouble buying single cigarettes at the station.
Brockton Health Agent Lou Tartaglia said tobacco retailers who flout the state's laws on packaging and sales to minors have little to worry about since state funding for spot checks and sting operations was cut in 2002.
Tartaglia used to run a stand-alone tobacco control office with two enforcement officers before state funding for smoking cessation programs dried up.
"It was working. The compliance rates were high," said Tartaglia. "If we did 75 (underage sale stings) we might catch one or two" retailers who wouldn't ask for identification. . . .
Ryan Martin, 16, of Brockton, said he's been smoking "since middle school."
Martin said he knows smoking can cause lung cancer and thinks he'll quit "someday, but not today."
"I'd say about a third" of the students at Brockton High smoke, he estimated. "Anyone can get (cigarettes) and nobody cares when if they catch you."
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