Rules Tighten for U.S. Tobacco Retailers

Life became a bit more tiresome Friday for twentysomething smokers, and a lot tougher for underage teens.

Even some people whose teen years were a distant memory were treated with suspicion. A 60-year-old cigarette buyer at the Sun Fresh Market in Kansas City, Mo., berated a cashier when she asked for a photo ID.

Manager Richard Sanchez defended his employee.

“She was just doing her job,” Sanchez said. “It’s hard to judge age so as a general rule, I tell my cashiers to ask if the person looks under 40. We’re safer that way.”

Friday’s new federal regulations require stores to ask for photo IDs from any customer who looks younger than 27. The goal is to crack down on teenage smoking, and penalties include $250 fines. In most states, the legal smoking age is 18.

We have “drawn a line where our children are concerned,” President Clinton declared Friday. “From now on, in every store in America, our children will be told: No ID, no sale.”

Some smokers were angry.

“Government should be doing something more than just worrying about kids smoking cigarettes,” scoffed truck driver Kurt Foster as he puffed away outside a gas station in Zebulon, N.C., close to some tobacco fields.

“I kind of feel insulted because I am old enough to drink and smoke if I choose,” 23-year-old Kim Balin said after being carded at a Boston convenience store where she bought a pack of cigarettes.

Around the country, retailers did their best to soothe harried customers. Many stores posted bold black signs detailing the new regulations. At a Wawa convenience store in downtown Philadelphia, employees wore buttons reading: “You don’t look a day over 26.”

At a Chevron station in Richmond, Va., clerk Veronica Loney said, “I ask for an ID every time they come here. I have some get mad, some don’t get mad. But I don’t pay attention. I don’t [want to] lose my job.”

At least one customer was flattered by her request.

“I felt like a little kid starting all over again,” chuckled 36-year-old Anthony “Cowboy” Harris.

The man who ushered in the new regulations, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David A. Kessler, retired Friday.

Although Kessler is best known for the smoking regulations, President Clinton lauded him Friday for making more drugs available to consumers and improving health information.

He will become dean of Yale University’s Medical School this summer.