Furlong asks AG to add vaping to compliance checks

After conducting its year-end alcohol compliance check last week, Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong said his office is making a request with the Nevada Attorney General’s Office to include vaping and tobacco products businesses shouldn’t be selling to minors in future stings.

The CCSO’s school resource officers in conjunction with Partnership Carson City,  held their final sting on Dec. 28 to make sure local businesses aren’t selling alcoholic beverages products to minors. The compliance check was held with the support of three volunteers between the ages of 16 to 18 who were sent to screen eight local businesses. Only one, JM Discount Liquor at 1501 E. Fifth St. #104, failed.

Furlong told the Nevada Appeal his request for expansion is to acquire greater resources to keep vaping and tobacco products from being easily accessible to teens in storefronts.

“I have instructed our team to proceed and coordinate with the AG’s office and determine if we can likewise add vaping and tobacco with the alcohol,” Furlong said. “(The businesses) would get a citation.”

Furlong said he hoped to hear soon from the Attorney General’s Office on the compliance checks, which are conducted every six to eight weeks.

“The question is, what do you cite (businesses) for?” Furlong said. “And it’s going to take a little bit of coordination. Under the current process, we only did them for alcohol. It all comes back to students in the schools. There’s an alarmingly high amount of students using. We do recognize if the stores don’t sell them, (the students) do have a way of getting them.”

The Carson City Board of Supervisors, meeting as the Board of Health on Dec. 21, heard a presentation on tobacco use and vaping among Nevada youth. They also discussed local and national policies under the direction of Carson City Health and Human Services’ director Nicki Aaker and public health program specialist Suzie Ledezma Rubio.

Some of Nevada’s latest data, Rubio said, show smoking rates are decreasing but vaping use is increasing among teen users, according to the Youth Risk Behavioral Survey (YRBS). The survey is held every two years and has been changed so that participants must opt out of taking it.

Rubio said the survey shows Carson City has shown an increase in youth who have tried smoking or vaping in the past few years. Statewide, the percentage of youth who ever have tried smoking is at 17.6%; in Carson City, this figure is 29.3%. The percentage of youth in Nevada who have ever tried vaping is 36.6% while in Carson City that number goes up to 43.2%, based on the 2021 YRBS.

Accessibility to electronic products, such as e-cigarettes or vaping devices, combustible tobacco products or non-combustible tobacco products in businesses has been a challenge, Rubio said. Nevada’s lawmakers have attempted the prohibition of sales through legislation to align with state law. But money for other efforts, such as the Youth Vaping Prevention fund that previously had been allocated by the Nevada Legislature for prevention and education to address the vaping epidemic, was not renewed.

Rubio’s presentation to the Board of Health said goals for the CCHHS Tobacco Prevention and Control Program are to promote quitting among youth and adults, prevent youth initiation, eliminate secondhand smoke and aerosol exposure and eliminate health disparities among diverse populations.

Furlong said the Attorney General’s Office has two investigators currently running the checks, which makes enforcement difficult at times. It’s also important for parents to be aware it’s not illegal for kids to be vaping but it is illegal for stores to be selling the products to sell to minors, he added.

The CCSO and Partnership Carson City, which partners in prevention and education with the Northern Regional Behavioral Health Policy Board, remind businesses to check identification and ensure those who are purchasing alcohol are 21 years of age or older.

“The offense is on the store who sells it to them,” he said.

Websites and resources for families who would like to know more about smoking, tobacco or vaping prevention include responsibletobacconv.com, tobaccofreekids.org, cdc.gov/tobacco, behindthehazenv.com, letstalkvaping.com and truthinitiative.org.