Four store clerks in Leesburg, Virginia, are facing fines after police say they were caught selling tobacco vaping products to underage customers.
The Leesburg Police Department conducted an underage vaping operation at 29 tobacco retail establishments and charged clerks at four of those businesses, according to a news release.
The clerks worked at the Sheetz on California Drive; Jock’s Exxon on West Market; Tobacco King and Vape on East Market Street; and Leesburg Tobacco & Vape on East Market Street.
The clerks, who range in age from 18 to 57-years-old, were each issued a summons charging them with violating the Virginia Code, which was amended in July 2019 to outlaw the sale of “tobacco products, nicotine vapor products, and alternative nicotine products” to anyone under 21 years of age.
The violations are punishable with a fine.
“Operations like these send a clear message to retail establishments in town, that they are responsible for training their staff to properly follow the law to ensure that age restricted products are only sold to those of legal age,” said Leesburg police Capt. David Smith.
History behind strict age restrictions
In October 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported that there was a “growing epidemic” of e-cigarette use among youths, after the administration’s 2017 National Youth Tobacco Survey found that two million middle and high school students used e-cigarettes.
Schools in Virginia also started to see addiction numbers soar in 2019. More than 600 students in the Fairfax County Public Schools were identified as having tobacco-related substance abuse problems during the 2018-19 school year, a steep increase from 69 students identified two years before.
At the same time, the negative effects of vaping were also becoming more apparent in the state.
Three cases of severe lung illness related to e-cigarettes were reported in August 2019 by the Virginia Department of Health, and the first e-cigarette-related death of a Virginia resident was reported two months later.
Youth nicotine use in the present
Even after Virginia legislators increased the minimum age requirement for buying e-cigarettes and vaping products from 18 to 21, the state received failing grades in 2021 from the American Lung Association for not curbing the sale of flavored vaping products and not putting enough funding aside for the prevention and treatment of nicotine addiction.
Law enforcement in Loudoun County staged a vaping operation in February 2020 and issued citations to six clerks that sold Juul pods to underage customers.
More recently, the ALA said in a 2023 report that both Virginia and Maryland are seeing higher rates of high school tobacco usage than the national average, and that Virginia is not passing any policies to curb that nicotine habit.
