I heard yesterday that some tobacco retailers in NSW have this week been tested in an undercover operation over the sale of tobacco to underage shoppers.
This is a timely reminder to newsagents selling tobacco products – if your newsagency software has age check features that causes a pop-up question to check age – use it, remind your staff to be vigilant and make sure your age restriction signage is clear. take these steps, especially the software step, and you have a stronger defence if a mistake is made.
We cop this at the start or end of School Holidays. The Health bloke from Wagga sets of with an underage kid and tests all tobacco retailers in what appears to be set runs. It had now been going on for 18 months or longer from memory.
What are the legalities on employing an underage person with their main job to buy cigarettes?
Surely that would be illegal
As long as Fairwork minimum standards in this case age and correct pay rate with a minimum of 3 hours are met no problems. There was a rumor 2 years ago though this was not the case. I think the Minimum age for a kid to work is 14 years 9 months. A 15 year old is definitely ok to work.
Before we stopped selling tobacco products it was amazing how often some one questioned about their age had to go to their car to get their ID……………never to return. You must be vigilant with this product, the margins aren’t worth fines of any size.
Same here Brendan. We’re tough on age checks and over the years the number of kids attempting to buy them has diminished significantly. We know other stores that aren’t so vigilant. They’re just lucky they haven’t been caught.
Our rules are if person looks 25 or under then ASK. Some of the women are flatted when you ask
Set it in your software so that the sales person must indicate an age check every time. This is good protection.
The POS age check is the second best defence available to any tobacco retailer – next to good training of course.
It also helps to have the exact DOB requirement on the POS screen for easy reference.