Twenty-six stores out of 100 in Stanislaus County will illegally sell cigarettes to minors, according to a California Department of Health Services survey. That rate is double the statewide rate of 12.2 percent.

In response, a local committee plans in May to ask the Board of Supervisors to implement a county ordinance designed to put teeth into enforcing the law.

The proposed ordinance would require stores which sell cigarettes to obtain a permit which costs $100. The permit would be revoked if the store was caught selling cigarettes to minors on more than one occasion.

"Something has to be done to get our local merchants to stop selling cigarettes to our children," said Kerrie Valenzuela of the Valley Lode branch of the American Lung Association of California.

The $100 charged for a permit would be used to fund tobacco buy programs, said Tim Bomgardner, a member of the Stop Tobacco Sales to Youth Committee. The target would be to conduct at least three sting programs per year.

Under the proposed ordinance, a merchant would get a 30-day suspension - which can be avoided by attending a special class - the first time caught selling any tobacco product to anyone underaged. The second offense would result in a 60-day suspension and payment of a new fee for another license. The third offense would result in a year-long suspension of the license and repayment of license fees. A fourth violation would result in a revocation with the possibility to get another license in five years.

Selling tobacco without a license would be a misdemeanor.

Valenzuela believes that some store owners care more about profits than adhering to the law. Those who are caught only pay a fine of $200, she said. Others may just be careless, she offered.

"I just don't think it's enough," she said. "Especially if they don't feel there's any conseqences."

It's proposed that the county Department of Environmental Resources to administer the program.

Bomgardner, also a Stanislaus County Sheriff's deputy, said the law has changed the way law enforcement agencies may conduct a sting. It used to be standard practice to send in a minor to attempt a cigarette purchase. If the clerk sold the product, they would be cited. State legislators saw that as causing the minor to break the law as well. Now, he said, a merchant can be cited if he or she presents a pack or carton of cigarettes to a minor for a sale and the minor walks away from the sale.

More than 30 cities in California have enacted special licenses for the sale of tobacco products.

"We think a plan like this would get the attention of local tobacco retailers that refuse to follow the law and common decency," said Valenzuela. "Obeying the law is simple. Retailers need to check a person's identification, calculate age and decline to sell tobacco to children."

Although selling tobacco to minors is illegal, merchants who violate the law mostly pay relatively small fines.

Proponents of the measure are concerned about data that shows that 200 children start smoking each day and that 90 percent of the 42,000 Californians who die each year from smoking-related diseases got hooked on tobacco products before they were 18.

Opponents of the measure believe that it not only calls for another layer of government bureaucracy but that it's disguised as a tax increase.

Involved in the effort are private citizens and health services organizations such as the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, Doctors Medical Foundation Fresh Outdoors Project.

Under the state's Stop Tobacco Access to Kids Enforcement (STAKE) Act, citizens may report a merchant seen selling tobacco to minors by calling 1 (800) ASK FOR ID. The merchant is then placed on a complaint list and will be subject to a buy sting by the state Food and Drug branch. - By JEFF BENZIGER / Editor of The Ceres (Calif.) Courier