From this thread:
More than one poster has claimed that a seller may face jail time for failing to card someone for cigarettes. Many stores say something like “we card everyone under 40” or whatever. And there are laws making selling cigarettes to minors punishable by fines and/or jail time. All true.
Factual question: Has anyone actually been sentenced to, and served, actual jail time for inadvertently selling smokes to a 20 yr old?
Looking for cites, not anecdotes or FOF comments. Thanks.
Does this constitute a running start?
They were arrested. Were they prosecuted, found guilty, and sentenced to jail time?
…serves me right for posting while watching a baseball game; my mistake; let me see if I can find a better match for you.
Missing it closer! “Out of those eight, five clerks were cited for criminally selling tobacco to a child.” The citations were issued during the July 16 operation. Rebecca Martin, Lisa Castle, Joshua Nash, Sara Price and Sandra Jones were each found guilty Tuesday during Marion Municipal Court hearings. Each was sentenced to 30 days jail, 30 days suspended; a $250 fine, $100 suspended; and court costs. Here’s to hoping the next cite that gets posted is even better…
Finding suspended sentences is a decent accomplishment. Suspended sentences can be revoked for some period of time if the guilty party runs afoul of the law again so we may not be able to determine whether or not you have answered the question for years into the future.
If anyone did serve time for a single simple violation it should be easy to find a news story about it. Maybe you’ll find a manager of a store who told his employees not to card customers and they’ll be charged with multiple counts and made an example of.
There may, technically, be something worth saying about this guy: “Henry Gransbury, was convicted in the county court of Alfalfa county on a charge of selling cigarettes to a minor, and punishment fixed at confinement in the county jail for 30 days and a fine of $100.”
I said “technically”.
Here’s an interesting one: “Chelsea N. Howells, 20, Steubenville Pike, Lisbon, was fined $150 and required 20 hours community service for underage tobacco sales for selling to an informant at JT Pitstop in Gavers on Sept. 23.”
Someone from that county with the same name was convicted years later on an even more serious charge:
“The defendant was charged in the information with having the unlawful possession on January 14, 1937, of 134 pints of whisky; 30 pints of gin; 20 pints of apricot liquor; and 69 pints of alcohol, with the intention of selling, bartering, giving away and otherwise furnishing said intoxicating liquor to others”
They didn’t mess around in Alfalfa County, OK.
Nobody’s going to bring up the scene in Clerks? If course, that was just a ticket issued and a fine, but at the time the movie was made, for a minimum wage employee, that would be a decent hit.
Should also mention the time my step-mother, at 85, was carded in the Idaho airport. My dad ordered a beer at the little restaurant, and the rule was if A orders an alcoholic drink and B does not order a drink, then you must card B. The server was apologetic, but rules were they could not simply decide someone looked “old enough” and skip the request - presumably lest they be sued for age discrimination.
That’s a shame because those cigs would have been useful in jail.
Many (most?) states have really severe penalties for serving alcohol to anyone underage, so establishments go overboard on policies to ensure that doesn’t happen. I presume that would be more likely to be the cause rather than a civil suit over age discrimination.
Talking about anecdotes, I knew someone back when I was a teenage who was already balding and easily looked like he was in his 30s. The police used him for their sting operations.
There’s also the issue of customers who won’t attempt to file a civil suit but will cause a scene on the spot if you ask them for proof and didn’t ask someone else, even if the person causing the scene is 22 and looks like they could be underage and the person who isn’t asked is 70 and looks every day of it.Best to avoid at least some problems by asking everyone.
A chain of convenience stores here in NE have to scan a driver’s license for anyone buying cigarettes. I don’t know if the register checks the age on the license or if the clerk has to do that but in some sense every one is carded to in order to buy smokes.
So if you don’t drive, you can’t smoke.
I believe state IDs are available that will do. Otherwise, you are out of luck at those places.
So if you’re a foreigner, you can’t smoke. 
I hope the policy lays out what ID is acceptable and allows for passports, ID from other states and provinces, etc.
I suppose it is possible…
However, I am old and in order to get off my butt, stand and move around and actually talk to people I haven’t talked to a million times before…I took about a 10 hour a week job at the convenience store/gas station across the street that is always screaming for workers.
I was told that if I sold tobacco to someone underage that I would be charged…$75 for the first offence. I think the store gets charged a bit more but nothing nasty. It gets worse if you keep doing it but the store said it would never happen a 3rd time as 2nd time is an auto-firing. This being said, the ‘slap on the wrist’ fine is not that worrisome and the store doesn’t sweat it - they tell you to card anyone looking under 30 but it is more relaxed than a liquor store where I, over 60, always get carded… I asked and no one has known of anyone ‘busted’ for doing it so it doesn’t seem to be something much actively patrolled for, unlike alcohol.
We do card, but it is much looser than for something much nastier. I have heard that selling ALCOHOL to a minor comes with a much MUCH stiffer fine for both you and the store and if you get caught twice it is pretty bad and that it is actively enforced and have talked to people that say they think they are ‘tested’ frequently. Since the store doesn’t sell alcohol it is a nonissue.
As a complete side note…I was amazed at how LOW the profit margins for a convenience/gas store are. Tobacco is below 20%, most items in the twenties with the highest profit margins being candy bars and such which are still below 40%. Even gas they don’t make much per gallon. I just assumed the profit margins were crazy before I worked there.
Edit just looked it up. Looks like the fine is $75 to the clerk for first offence and $250 for second. The merchant is charged $200/$600 respectively. The third, though is worse and involves licence suspension…which explains the auto firing at 2 offenses.
My brother was 18, but this was in the days before pictures on licenses. He was short and looked 14, so he’d lend his ID to his friend who was a gangly ectomorph thyroid giant type and over 6 foot even though he was 15. His friend never got any hassle buying them the alcohol.