Cigarettes and Tobacco News

Sep 20, 2006 -- St. Paul is considering an ordinance that would ban the sale of individual cigarettes, commonly called "loosies," that come from a standard pack of 20.

City Council President Kathy Lantry, sponsor of the ordinance introduced Wednesday, said she has received multiple complaints from her constituents that the majority of single cigarettes sold are bought by minors.

She said research shows that communities where individual cigarettes are peddled have higher smoking rates among young people.

"I get a lot of complaints in my office," she said at Wednesday's meeting.

Federal law prohibits the sale of cigarettes without the surgeon general's warning label, but no state or local law exists that specifically addresses the sale of single cigarettes.

Other Minnesota cities have addressed individual cigarette sales through local laws, which typically are easier to enforce than state and federal laws.

The sale of loosies most often attracts the poor and minors, said Jeanne Weigum, executive director of the Association for Nonsmokers-Minnesota, which helped write the proposed ordinance.

Weigum said she suspects that the problem isn't widespread in St. Paul, but added: "It's vulnerable people who are going and buying one or two cigarettes."

Tobacco retailers who follow the federal law don't want to get lumped in with those who are breaking it by selling single cigarettes, said Tom Briant, director of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets, based in Minneapolis. He said members of his organization don't sell cigarettes illegally.

"Why people would do that, I'm not sure," he said of those selling loosies. "It's not appropriate or legal."

Kristina Schweinler, a St. Paul senior licensing inspector, said that some smaller retailers are suspected of opening packs and selling singles.

"There's a health concern if cigarettes aren't wrapped and packaged," she said.

Doug Blanke, director of the Tobacco Law Center at William Mitchell College of Law, said that a study conducted in California in the early 1990s showed that more than half of the surveyed tobacco retailers in that state were selling cigarettes individually. He said the study also showed that the sales were more prevalent in nonwhite neighborhoods.

Blanke also mentioned a World Health Organization treaty, not ratified by the United States, that encourages the banning of individual cigarette sales to curb smoking among minors.

Such an ordinance would be supervised by licensing officials who would call upon police to investigate any potential violations, said St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh. Police officials aren't aware that the sale of individual cigarettes is a big problem, he said.

A public hearing on the ordinance will be held

in a few weeks.