Teen agents in Berks County enforce ban on tobacco sales to minors

About a dozen students from 6 high schools work undercover; stores that sell to minors receive citations.

A 17-year-old Reading girl waited in line to pay for orange-flavored vitamin water and to buy a pack of cigarettes recently at a West Reading convenience store.
"May I have a pack of Newports?" she asked the clerk.
The clerk gave her the cigarettes and rang up the sale.About 10 minutes later, the clerk and store were cited for selling tobacco to a minor."The clerk apologized and said it was his first time," said Michael Moorman, the Berks County sheriff's deputy who issued the citations. "I hear all kinds of excuses."
The girl was accompanied into the store by an adult during an undercover tobacco operation run by the Berks County Council on Chemical Abuse as the deputy waited in the parking lot.
The girl, who asked not to be identified, said she has been working undercover for three years because she he has strong feelings against smoking.
"I am doing this because I don't think people should be smoking," said the teen, who is paid $10 an hour by the council for going undercover.
The girl said none of her friends or relatives smoke cigarettes.
A Reading High School senior, she is one of a dozen students from about six county high schools who works undercover. The students are members of BUSTED!, a program to educate the community about the dangers of tobacco, and are trained before they go into the stores.
The council and law enforcement officers are planning more than 1,300 unannounced checks at stores - like the one in West Reading - this year in hopes of preventing tobacco sales to those under the age of 18.
The law requires clerks to check identification for anyone who looks under 25 years of age.
Christa L. McCusker, council tobacco program coordinator, said the number of checks has nearly tripled during the last three years because more law enforcement departments are participating."We want to keep tobacco out of the hands of youth," McCusker said. "We have added more law enforcement to help with the checks."In December, Sheriff Eric J. Weaknecht's deputies began working with the council to conduct checks.
Having the sheriff's (deputies) working with us is really helping because they are allowed to go countywide," McCusker said.
Weaknecht said his deputies are glad to help.