{"id":58139,"date":"2017-05-08T11:57:43","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T16:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/?p=58139"},"modified":"2017-05-14T18:37:43","modified_gmt":"2017-05-14T23:37:43","slug":"5-depanneurs-caught-every-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/5-depanneurs-caught-every-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Tobacco Sale to Minors: 5 Deps Caught Per Week in 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite the recent very large increase in Quebec penalties<\/a>, no less than five convenience stores per week<\/strong> were caught by underage inspectors selling tobacco to minors last year, in 2016. In each case, a c-store employee sold tobacco to a minor without having required a valid identity card or despite the fact that the young customer admitted he did not have any proof or evidence of his majority.<\/p>\n

These exclusive statistics<\/a>\u00a0were obtained from the Minist\u00e8re de la Sant\u00e9 et des Services Sociaux (MSSS)<\/strong><\/a> or Quebec\u2019s health ministry, last January by DepQuebec<\/strong> under the Access to Information Act. The\u00a0findings obtained show\u00a0that among the 7,000 convenience stores in Quebec, perfection has not been achieved yet and work is still needed to improve prevention of tobacco sale to minors.<\/p>\n

The President of the Quebec Convenience Stores Association (QCSA<\/a>)<\/strong>, Michel Gadbois, whose mission consists of fostering the industry\u2019s best practices,\u00a0 is shocked by these revelations: “Even if perfection is not of this world and there will always be errors, this figure of five faulty per week is far too high. When the inspection level returns gets back to its average volume this year or next, we could see as much as 10 convenience stores a week caught selling tobacco to minors. This is unacceptable: as a responsible industry, we must and can do better! “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Michel Gadbois<\/strong> recalled that the QCSA<\/strong><\/a> last year set up the INSPECTABAC<\/strong><\/a> program in collaboration with the mystery shopping firm STATOPEX<\/u><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to provide convenience stores with an affordable service of professional third-party verification of their sellling practices enabling them to identify vulnerabilities, better train their employees and thus, do everything possible to avoid the sale of tobacco to minors, whatever appearance, attitude or insistence they may sometimes present.<\/p>\n

Concerning figures for the industry<\/strong><\/p>\n

The news about the 2016 inspection statistics for convenience stores was discreetly released in the media on February 5<\/a>, but without revealing a single figure or detail. What is surprising at first sight is the decline in the number of inspections in 2016 compared to previous years. The MSSS<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>carried out only 1,986 inspections in 2016, compared to 4,852 in 2015 and 4,925 inspections in 2014, representing a reduction of approximately 60% in the number of inspections (see Inspections 2016 – MSSS Data<\/a>). Of this number of inspections, approximately 13% or 256 convenience stores were found to be non-compliant, or caught in the act of selling tobacco to minors. A vast majority of 87% of convenience stores defaulted, or 223, chose to plead guilty. In addition, the MSSS<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>counts 34 license suspensions, but in many cases it may be a pre-2016 offense.<\/p>\n

As to why the ministry of health has decreased its inspections of minors, the Ministry explained that this decrease is linked to the entry into force of new measures in 2016, such as the ban on smoking on terraces, which takes 26 inspectors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the Journal de Montr\u00e9al<\/a>, the 26 police inspectors of the MSSS<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>handed out very few tickets for smoking tobacco or e-cigarettes within 9 meters of a door (only 5 in the whole year!), but more linked to the new smoking ban on restaurant terraces (111 to owners and 70 to individuals).<\/p>\n

That said, it would be surprising that the number of Convenience Store inspections in 2016 remains at this relatively low level for a long time given the severity and zero tolerance approach with which the government has accustomed the industry when it comes to preventing tobacco sale to minors.<\/p>\n

“For c-store owners, this respite is a great opportunity to improve their selling practice once and for all. Any serious owner will want to invest in a self-audit program by an independent third-party professional and I encourage all convenience stores to contact us without delay to join the INSPECTABAC<\/strong><\/a> program, if it is not already done. “, said Gadbois.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The fines for a first offense are $ 2,500 minimum and $ 62,500 maximum and for a second offense within a period of five years, $ 5,000 minimum and $ 125,000 maximum\u00a0plus a one-month ban of selling tobacco.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite the recent very large increase in Quebec penalties, no less than five convenience stores per week were caught by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":104078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1737,234],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tobacco-ecig","category-zoom-dep"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/jeune-dans-un-dep-opt.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}