Beware the young tobacco spies

Nyssa – your suggestion might work in large supermarkets, but would fall in a big screaming heap in small newsagencies and corner shops.

I think you’d find that in small businesses, younger employees are very dilligent about checking ID’s, as they are aware of the consequences of a large fine on the business. At Coles, the kids have no contact with the people who own the shop, so there is less of a sense of consequence.

You could try lobbying Woolies for a change of internal policy, but keep the little guys out of this. It’s tough enough running a small business without being unfairly penalised by only being allowed to hire people over the age of 18.

A long, long time ago I recall 16 year olds selling booze and smokes at Richard Farmers shop in Braddon and they had absolutely no problem in asking of ID when they thought it was an issue … partly I think it was because a 16 or 17 year old is pretty good at picking one of their own.

a lot of 16 year olds are considerably more diligent than an adult employee would be in a similar situation in that role.

Big Al, I deal with 16yos on a daily basis.

They wouldn’t check at all.

They’re minors and less accountable under the law – so of course an 18yo will ask as they are now an adult.

16yos can work elsewhere in a shop. They don’t need to be at the smoke counter or grog shop.

If they aren’t legally allowed to purchase either, then they shouldn’t be able to sell it. Or are we going to lower the age to 16yo?

I seem to recall asking everyone who looked less than 25 for ID back when I was a checkout chick. Believe I started working at 15. Any of my peers that tried it on I told to sod off.

Anyway – what’s to stop an 18 year old from selling to their younger friends or little brothers/sisters?

It’s the responsibility of the retailer to keep an eye on the younger sellers – thus I would say that businesses rather than individuals are more likely to be fined for selling tobacco to minors.

Removing 16 year olds from shops isn’t going to make the problem go away. It’s going to make shopping more expensive (do you think retailers are going to take it in the neck for the difference?) and deny employment to a bunch of kids who really benefit from such work.

I don’t know about you AD, but the legal age for alcohol and smoke sales never stopped me from smoking or getting pissed well before I was 18.

Grow up Nyssa! This isn’t some pinko micro-management comand-and-control wet dream … Why the hell would an 18 year old be any more likley to ask for ID than a 16 year old? The law simply says that it’s illegal to sell someone under 18 these products because we see the benefits to society from excluding that class of consumer from that class of goods.

lift the legal age for smoking and drinking and you will eradicate a whole bunch of problems.

Bugger the wage blow out, they shouldn’t be able to sell. 16yos will not ask for ID, nor will they stop from selling to their underage friends.

It’s a joke and should be made law – you can sell or buy if you are under 18yo.

I’ve stopped really wanting one after 7 years.
Except when I’m sitting around in the pub with a few smokers….

I’m sure every newsagent, small grocer and general store in the country agrees with you nyssa, and would be happy to pay for the wage blowout that would cause.

16yo to sell? Why not buy then?

The stupidity of it all.

They shouldn’t be bought or sold by anyone under 18yo.

Simple.

Damn straight it’s addictive. I’ve given up for up to 5 years at a stretch, and never stopped wanting one.

Not addictive? Now, that would be a belief that flies in the face of a fairly vast bulk of scientific evidence to the contrary, bonfire – but you go right ahead. Never stopped you before.

Smoking or not smoking is a personal choice, but once you quit, the urge never goes away. I wish someone had told me that before I started.

I dunno if the brownshirted kiddies is quite evidence of a jackbooting government (I think we’ve be subjected to far more grievous insults to our personal freedoms than this recently), but I do agree that it’s a load of bollocks designed to placate the “think of the children” brigade.

dogooders claim cigarettes are addictive but i dont believe that to be true.

its personal achoice.

freedom to smoke or not to smoke.

but the more we are happy to surrender our rights to a jackbooting gummint under whatever pretext – the worse off society will be as a whole.

Funnily enough Cassie, some people just enjoy smoking (not that I’d ever recommend taking it up mind you). As far as cigarettes leading to ‘prohibited’ drug use that’s just a load of bollocks.

Easy availability of the illicit substances is the problem.

However, as a (former as of 2 days ago) reformed smoker (or would that be reformed reformed smoker?) I would agree that getting cigarettes moved from being prominently displayed behind counters to under the counter would help folks who are tempted (ie someone such as myself, a former 40 a day smoker who’d quit for 3 months) by not being a constant reminder every time you go to a servo/supermarket/newsagent cash register just to pay for your stuff.

What’s that got to do with the current thread of conversation, you ask?

Well, probably nothing, I’m a bit scatterbrained at the moment – Hooray for illicit substances!

(last remark totally tongue in cheek, folks.)

Whilst doing Legal Studies at school we were told you only have to be 16yo to sell both these products. I believe Woolworths follows this.

Minors shouldn’t be smoking anyway, not that I agree with adults smoking either. But as minors, we are more impressionable and more likely to give into peer pressure, we might just smoke when our friends give us one, but eventually we will become addicted and want to find our own supply. Starting young means more damage on the lungs as we get older, and you may be thinking, its only cigarettes but cigarettes lead to more, like prohibited drugs and under age drinking. I am 15 and in Yr 9, so I see teens smoking everyday, it is a horrible habit that ruins your body and effects the people around you almost if not just as bad.

Personally, I wished more kids would die from lung cancer – it’d get them out of the malls!

kids will get smokes somehow anyways.
what a bullshit waste of money.
These “volunteers” would wanna get paid.

Stoopid system won’t work anyway

The new hilter yoof will be frocked up in brown shirts and boots and armbands and caps so the kiddies serving in the shops will spot ’em a mile off

Nyssa – I believe that there’s no law prohibiting people under the age of 18 from selling tobbaco or alcohol in the ACT so I’m pretty sure your shop assistant was breaking no rules. Obviously they still have a responsibility to abide by regulations relating to the purchase of those items by minors – and like you say, selling tobbaco to their friends could be one of the areas that the current arrangements is seeking to crack down on – after all a young shop assistant probably has greated incentives to break the law than would teh shop owner.

if the kid is buying a cool refreshing marlboro on behalf of an adult then surely their is a legal sale to an adult. if the kid is an agent of the adult.

this is just wrong in any case.

soon you’ll have children in schools informing on their smoking parents.

Cheers, but I think any credit should go to their Honours

Pandy I lived in the States and was asked for ID to buy smokes (I was 21yo). Never asked for ID for alcohol when I went out.

I do report the people but I still think that those under 18yo shouldn’t be selling them at all. Is Ms. Gallagher going to send “spies” in to monitor that too?

Which is what I said, but you argue well Obi-Wan

Culpable in the moral sense maybe, but if the legislation has made it legal for a child of 15 (or whatever it is) to but cigarettes at the behest of an “authorized officer” (and the legislation obviously will make it legal for the authorized officer to request this) then neither the child or the authorized officer has any legal culpability (as they are not doing anything illegal). Hence, getting back to this being a way around the Bunning v Cross discretion. An alternative way around the Bunning v Cross discretion is the issue of certificates by the AG as has become the practice since Ridgeway in major investigations.

Using that argument then the ‘kid’ that buys the ciggies is just as culpable

Mason CJ Dean and Dawson JJ “The question whether the common law of this country recognizes a substantive defence of “entrapment” to a charge of a criminal offence has not been directly addressed in any case in this Court. It has, however, been considered on a number of occasions by State Supreme Courts which have consistently and emphatically answered it in the negative. Similarly, the courts of England, Canada and New Zealand have denied the existence of such a substantive common law defence. The decisions to that effect are not surprising since it is a central thesis of our criminal law that a person who voluntarily and with the necessary intent commits all the objective elements of a criminal offence is guilty of that offence regardless of whether he or she was induced to act by another, whether private citizen or law enforcement officer.” Ridgeway v The Queen.

Nyssa,

Once I saw the pimple faced kid behind the counter sell some smokes to a girl in school uniform without asking for id. (Ever been to the states? Expect even 30 yo to be asked for id before getting into a bar). I reported it and the authorities were very quick to phone me and ask for details. They then proceeded to stake-out the store for a day before going into the store and talking to the manager. I am sure that I have not seen a recourrance of this incident.

It pays to report these people so they can be better educated.

Bollocks. Have a read of the laws in relation to conspiracy. You can’t simply conspire with an ‘agent’ of the government. You need a 3rd person to make a conspiracy.

Ridgeay talks about controlled operations. i.e. by the AFP ‘allowing’ a controlled delivery it technically imported the drugs themselves, committing the same offence as Ridgeway. They now get certificates to obviate that

There is no doctrine of “entrapment” in Australia and certainly no leg enshrining it. Courts have the discretion to exclude evidence that is illegally obtained. The courts balance competing public policy objectives “On the one hand there is the public need to bring to conviction those who commit criminal offences. On the other hand is the public interest in the protection of the individual from unlawful and unfair treatment.” Bunning v Cross (it’s the discretion used by the Crt Crim App in Vic in R v Thomas). But anyway by legislating presumably (not having read the bill/leg) it makes it legal for the kids to by smokes under the supervision of the authorized officer however the selling of the smokes remains illegal. Thus the Bunning v Cross discretion does not even come into play.

It’s a practice that is akin to any controlled operation, see John Anthony Ridgeway v The Queen for the HC more recent discussion of the area (which is also authority for the absence of a doctrine of entrapment in Aust).

Pandy, the kids are selling the smokes to their friends.

The number of times I’ve had to speak to the manager of a shop regarding this is a joke.

I’ve seen “older looking” 14yo’s get smokes of their 16yo friends. I had students who would brag about buying the smokes from their local shops because a friend would sell the smokes to them.

So you have to be 18 to sell smokes and chewbacca? First I heard of it.

Apparently the human rights act doesn’t make us safe from entrapment.

haven’t they been doing that in the rest of australia for years?

Silly Katy might want to check out a little legislative thing called entrapment.

Or having the ‘authorised officer’ charged with aiding and abetting the offence.

Surely someone’s civil rights will be breached. What a bunch of wankers

I went to buy smokes and alcohol last week and I had a student try to sell me both at her place of employment (IGA in South Canberra).

I informed her that she couldn’t as she was only 15yo. I made her boss (a man over 45yo) sell them to me.

She’s a good kid but how many students working in small shops adhere to the rules?

No one under 18yo shoud be behind the counter where you can buy cigarettes or alcohol, even if they are cheaper labour.

outrageous.

i expect this of socialists though.

next step ? the red guard ?