The Knoxville Police Department is teaming up with the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division to educate local retailers about how to avoid selling tobacco products to underage buyers.
The I-PLEDGE program offers education to local retailers and their employees on what to watch for when they meet a possibly underage buyer of tobacco, nicotine and vapor products.
As part of this, the department will use underage operatives to do compliance checks; Kyle Keller is the department’s School Resource Officer, and he says they are required by law to use operatives who are at least age 16, and look it.
He tells KNIA/KRLS News the object is not to try and fool employees or store owners into selling to someone they shouldn’t, but to encourage them to carefully check identification.
“We don’t try to choose them when they’re looking like they’re 25 or 30, we don’t try to put college name-brand clothes on them to make it seem like they’re in college or that they’re older than what they are,” Keller says. “We want the businesses to succeed in this; we want the employees to succeed in this.”
Keller says if clerks take the online training course and then pass an exam, they can become I-PLEDGE certified. This allows a retailer to better defend themselves against a civil penalty, if the certified clerk makes an illegal sale.
For more information on I-PLEDGE, tune in to today’s edition of Let’s Talk Knoxville.
