Livermore Police Get $510K To Fight Tobacco Sales To Minors

LIVERMORE, CA — The Livermore Police Department has received a $510,000 state grant to fight tobacco marketing and sales to minors.

That money will allow LPD to hire a full-time school resource officer, conduct inspection and enforcement operations at tobacco retailers, and increase youth and community awareness about tobacco and vaping risks in partnership with Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District, according to a press release from the department.

LPD was one of 76 agencies in the state to receive a grant from the California Department of Justice Tobacco Grant Program, to ensure state and local tobacco laws are followed when it comes to sales to minors. Police applied for the grant in July, with help from the district.

The grant, funded by the tobacco tax passed by California voters in 2016, will also allow the police department to enforce local tobacco regulations passed by the Livermore City Council in July. The ordinance will go into effect in 2020, and ban tobacco sales within 1,000 feet from schools and places where youth gather, require tobacco product retailers to get a tobacco license from the city, and ban sales of flavored tobacco products, vapes and vape fluid, or vape juice.

The grant comes amid rising concerns about an uptick in student vaping locally and across the country.

One in four LVJUSD high schoolers use some form of tobacco, and seven in 10 high school juniors said tobacco is very or fairly easy to get, according to the results of the California Healthy Kids Survey conducted in the school year from 2017 to 2018. Two-thirds of students surveyed said they could buy tobacco straight from retailers.

A recent LPD decoy operation found that four in eight retailers illegally sold tobacco to minors.

Earlier this week the district sued JUUL Labs, the best-selling e-cigarette company on the market, saying it should pay for the "time, money, and human resources to combat this nuisance," the lawsuit said. Other Bay Area school districts simultaneously filed suit.

The council is expected to accept the grant in early 2020, according to LPD.

See more: