The Greene County Sheriff’s Office in conjunction with the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division (ABD) have been working together to keep tobacco out of the hands of youth in the communities.

The Sheriff’s Office along with several other counties including Guthrie County have joined together to take the Iowa Pledge which has helped increase statewide tobacco compliance to 92% since 2000.  Chief Deputy Jack Williams says they will be doing tobacco compliance checks throughout the county for the next couple of weeks.

“The tobacco compliance checks are just to make sure that all of the vendors that sell any tobacco products are checking the ID’s properly, making sure that everybody’s of age and that they are not selling to anybody that is not of age.”

Underage customers, under the supervision of law enforcement officers, will enter establishments that sell tobacco products and attempt to buy them. Clerks who don’t check ID’s and make the illegal sale will be cited on the spot.  However, Chief Deputy Williams stresses that citing clerks isn’t the intent of this program, it is just to make establishments are aware of tobacco laws and make sure they are compliant with them.

Penalties for selling tobacco to a minor in the State of Iowa are a $100 fine for the first offense, a $250 fine for the second offense and a $500 fine for third and subsequent offenses.  There is training for clerks to be Iowa Pledge Certified and that is to take an online training program and pass an exam.  For more information, Contact the Law Enforcement Center in Jefferson at 386-2136.