MONTICELLO – Sullivan County is the latest area county to adopt a so-called Tobacco21 law, meaning people must be 21 or older to legally purchase tobacco products.
By an eight-to-one vote on Thursday, county legislators approved the law. The vote came following public comment from a dozen county residents; all but two supported the measure.
Legislature Chairman Luis Alvarez said the new law will make it more
difficult for teenagers to secure tobacco products.
“If somebody is in high school and 16 years old and he can’t
buy cigarettes, all he has to do is go to a friend who is 18, and you
have a lot of kids who are 18 years old. Now you have to jump it to somebody
who is 21 and you are not going to see that person in school,”he
said.
When Alvarez was reminded that people under the new age limit could easily travel across state lines to adjacent Pennsylvania, with several tobacco outlets and lower prices, he said, “There is nothing we can do about that.”
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