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Rite Aid Agrees to Measures to Curb Tobacco Sales to Minors [09/09-4]

Excerpts from: Rite Aid agrees to measures to curb tobacco sales to minors

"The states approached us and asked us to work with them," said Jody Cook, a spokeswoman for Camp Hill, Pa.-based Rite Aid.

More than 80 percent of regular adult smokers began smoking as children and an estimated 690 million packs of cigarettes are sold illegally to children in the United States annually, Pennsylvania Attorney General Jerry Pappert said.

Beginning in 2000, 30 attorneys general have focused their enforcement efforts on retailers with poor records of selling tobacco products to minors, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said.

Under the agreement, Rite Aid will pay $250,000 for the costs of state investigations and install a number of policies in its stores.

For instance, Rite Aid will be required to train its employees about smoking's health impact on youths, hire a firm to conduct compliance checks for six years, and ban self-service displays of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products.

The agreement also requires that in-store advertising for tobacco products be located where the advertised products are sold and be limited to brand names, logos and prices.

Store managers must report all alleged violations to a compliance officer within 10 days.

Rite Aid has about 3,375 stores in 28 states and Washington, D.C., although the agreement only covers about 2,900 stores in the participating states.

Signing the agreement were attorneys general from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont and Washington.

In the past two years, attorneys general have engaged Sam's Club, Walgreen, Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, and other chains in similar agreements.