A KENT MP is predicting confusion and anger when new laws on teenage smoking come into effect next week.
From Monday, October 1 it will be illegal for tobacco to be sold to under-18s, but North Thanet MP Roger Gale claimed shopkeepers are likely to come under fire from former customers.
He said: “From next Monday we are faced with the inevitable prospect of retailers who have served regular customers under-18 but over the current legal limit, but having to tell those young men and women that they are no longer allowed to buy cigarettes.
“The Association of Convenience Stores tell me that refusing age-restricted sales (of alcohol, for example) is already a major cause of intimidation and violence towards shopkeepers and having to take away a right that some at present enjoy is clearly not going to make them popular.
“There's a very real danger that some young people will blame shopkeepers for a ban that they are simply required to enforce by law and there will, I think, be an inevitable increase in the number of young addicted smokers trying to persuade older teenagers and adults to buy cigarettes for them.”
POSTED: 24/09/2007 09:33:34
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