On the buses to fight illegal tobacco sales (From Gazette & Herald)

On the buses to fight illegal tobacco sales

A HIGH-profile poster campaign to fight illegal tobacco sales is being launched in buses across Ryedale.

Trading standards officers and healthcare officials have come together in a joint venture designed to crack down on traders illegally selling cigarettes to children under 16.

Thanks to a donation of advertising space from bus company East Yorkshire Motor Services, posters highlighting a hotline number will appear in 50 vehicles serving towns as far apart as Helmsley, Pickering and Pocklington.

North Yorkshire County Council's trading standards department said that part of the problem was that traders in the area were still prepared to risk prosecution by selling cigarettes to underage smokers.

Trading standards officer Richard Flinton said: "We have enforced the sales of cigarettes to children for a lot of years.

"But we are still aware, and everyone involved in local communities knows, that kids are smoking because they still have the access."

Mr Flinton said the council regularly used young people to conduct targeted test purchases - where traders are tested by children under 16 asking for cigarettes and other tobacco products.

He explained: "We already target retailers but clearly we need better intelligence - that is the point of the hotline number.

"We have to ask if we are targeting the right premises.

"This campaign is directed at parents and other people working with young people.

"It is to actually say, you give us the information and we will target the premises."

Mr Flinton added: "We would like to stress that people can provide us with the information in complete confidentiality.

"Once we have the information we will run targeted test purchases using our young volunteers."

Carole Irwin, from the Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale Primary Care Trust, said it was important that people understood how harmful smoking was at any age.

"We know from our health promotions team that traditional approaches discouraging people to smoke don't work with children.

"They think that they can smoke without becoming addicted, but we all know that's not true."

By age 15, one recent survey had found that 23 percent of secondary school pupils were smokers, she said.

In the UK around 450 children start smoking each day.

She added: "Although young people think they can do it just a few times and give up whenever they want to, that is not the case."

The trading standards hotline number is 01609 780780 and will be appearing in buses across the region from next week.

Updated: 08:35 Thursday, October 17, 2002