Tobacco Vendors Feel City's Pressure

Cambridge businesses which sell tobacco products to minors are thinking twice because city officials are on the prowl.

At a press conference at City Hall yesterday afternoon, Patricia Andersen, policy and enforcement coordinator for the city's tobacco control program, announced that 22 percent of area merchants sold tobacco products to seven local teenagers sent undercover by the program last December.

But the number of offending vendors is substantially lower than it was a year ago, Andersen said.

"This figure is 36.3 percent lower than last February," she said. "That's a really dramatic fall, and we think it's due to our education program, working with police and the media."

Under policies approved by the Cambridge City Council last spring, all retailers who sell tobacco products must register with the city. Those who sell to minors can be slapped with fines or have their tobacco licenses revoked, Andersen said.

Only three of 20 Harvard Square vendors approached by the teenagers sold them cigarettes in December, according to data released at the press conference. Last Feburary, seven of 10 merchants approached sold to minors.

Although the names of offending businesses will not be released until a later date, Hong Kong Restaurant in Harvard Square was one of the offenders, according to a teenager working with the health department who requested anonymity.

But an employee at the venerable Harvard Square restaurant who refused to give his name denied the allegations.

"This is the first we heard anything about that," he said.

The poorest compliance rates were in Central Square, where almost 43 percent of retailers violated city regulations, according to Andersen.

Enforcement

Kitty Jerome, director of Cambridge United for Smoking Prevention, a coalition of citizens and health officials, said officials will focus attention on strictly enforcing the harsher policy.

"Now that we have an ordinance, we want to make sure it's put into place," Jerome said.

Local officials also are working to decrease the teenage demand for cigarettes.

The Department of Health and Hospitals has held anti-smoking education programs at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, local elementary schools and youth centers across the city, said Lamar Sheridan, tobacco education grant manager.

Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55 applauded city efforts to discourage smoking among youngsters.

"Tobacco manufacturers particularly single out young people because they know once you start, slowly you will become addicted to smoking and maybe something else later down the line," said Duehay, who is the city's acting mayor.

"That's why it's particularly important to focus our education and prevention efforts on young people," he said.

The tobacco control program is funded by a 25 cent tobacco tax which was approved by voters in a 1992 statewide referendum. The Cambridge Department of Health and Hospitals received $113,000 in state funds this year, Andersen said.