When you hear the words “maximum fine,” and if you pay any attention to the courts, very rarely are those words actually ever utilized.

A crime has to be quite significant to be worthy of the “maximum,” and it seems this culture has now carried over to the tobacco program of the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit and the Smoke Free Ontario Act.

Just recently a local grocery store clerk was caught selling cigarettes to a minor, and a fine of $365 was levied. According to the SMDHU, this is the second time in the last five years that this business was caught selling tobacco products to minors.

The Smoke Free Ontario Act seemingly tries to deter this sort of behaviour by threatening large fines for employees and businesses, as well as a prohibition for offenders, meaning they can’t sell tobacco products for a period of time.

But a tobacco program supervisor with the health unit says they prefer not to lay the higher fines, but would rather implement the prohibition.

However in this case only a smaller fine, compared to the $20,000 maximum, was levied and according to the health unit, they are not asking for a prohibition.

This is very shocking considering that public health organizations should be leading the charge against smoking with their stop smoking campaigns and competitions and targeting youth before they start.

While a $365 fine is a hard pill to swallow for an individual employee, obviously the fact that this is the second time this business has been involved in such an offence was not enough of a deterrent to not let this happen again.

So why was this offence not taken more seriously by the health unit?

In reading the Smoke Free Ontario Act, it states that one of the legislation’s goals is to prevent children and youth from lighting up in the first place.

Education is a huge part of that, but another significant piece of the puzzle is to not allow youth under the age of 19 to get their hands on cigarettes and other tobacco products.

Without implementing all of the tools available to tobacco enforcement officers to help deter such illegal actions and to stop youth from picking up the bad habit before it starts, the work for a smoke-free Ontario could all go up in smoke.

KF