GATE CITY - Representatives from a Virginia government agency go into 400 convenience stores each month with one goal - to try to buy a pack of cigarettes or smokeless tobacco.

Those buyers are underage agents employed by the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control participating in a compliance check that takes place monthly to see if stores are selling tobacco products to people under the age of 18. According to data released Tuesday, stores across the commonwealth seem to be reducing those types of sales. Information from Virginia ABC and the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation states that the rate of noncompliance tobacco sales to underage buyers in the past fiscal year was 11 percent. That number is down considerably from the 1998 figure of 30 percent. However, the percentage of underage sales in the Southwest Virginia region exceeds the state average of the survey. In Region 1-ABC Bureau of Law Enforcement Territories - which includes Scott, Lee, Wise, Washington, Dickenson, Buchanan, Tazewell, Russell and other Southwest Virginia counties up to Roanoke - 138 establishments were inspected and 20 stores, or 14 percent, were found to be in noncompliance. The noncompliance rates were determined by a Synar survey conducted by ABC and the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services. Synar surveys are required to be done by each state to clamp down on underage tobacco sales under legislation passed by Congress in 1992. If a state does not fall within the 20 percent "safety zone'' of noncompliance, full federal funding for their substance abuse programs is withheld. Becky Gettings, a public relations official with Virginia ABC, said Tuesday that more than 19,000 tobacco compliance checks have been conducted by special agents in various establishments since September 1997. "We have underage agents conducting these undercover stings 400 times a month in various parts of the state,'' said Gettings. "A person who is underage or appears to be underage goes into the store accompanied by another ABC agent and tries to purchase either cigarettes or smokeless tobacco. "If a clerk does not check for proper identification, then they are in violation of state law. The owner of the store can also be penalized for the offense.'' A person who is convicted of selling tobacco to a minor is subject to a $100 fine for a first offense and up to $500 for a third and subsequent charges. A business can be fined up to $2,500 for underage tobacco sales and a fine not to exceed $1,000 if they do not train their employees in the proper I.D. procedures. Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation Executive Director Marty Kilgore, a Southwest Virginia native and wife of Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, said the recent Synar report was "very encouraging.'' The foundation was established in 1999 with a mission to reduce and prevent the use of tobacco by Virginia youth and is funded by 10 percent of the state's portion of the Master Settlement Agreement.

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