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Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
Mass Innovations, From The Beacon, November 2013
The Tri-Town Health Department in Berkshire County is believed to be the only entity in Massachusetts that mandates training of store clerks to make it less likely that they will sell tobacco products to minors. Now, the department is preparing to offer the training service online.
The online component, designed in part to reduce costs, is made possible by a $19,000 Community Innovation Grant the department received earlier this year, according to Tri-Town Health Director James Wilusz.
He said that the district, which comprises Lee, Lenox and Stockbridge but also serves several other Berkshire County communities, has been focused on discouraging smoking for the past two decades. But in 2007, the region saw a sharp jump in tobacco sales to minors.
“We found ourselves at the point where boards [of health] themselves were suspending stores, taking their license to sell tobacco,” Wilusz said. “We said, ‘We’re following the regulations, but we’re still getting the sales [to minors]. We’re doing retail trainings, we’re doing the retail inspections, we’re doing the one-on-one outreach. What are we we doing wrong?’”
An initial step was to create a tobacco retailer committee, which came up with the idea of mandating the training.
After more than six months of discussion, a plan to train the store clerks emerged. The Pittsfield Board of Health was the first to endorse the training requirement, followed by Lee, Lenox, Stockbridge, Lanesborough and Great Barrington. Wilusz noted that for the first three years, the program’s cost was shouldered by the Tri-Town Health Department.
In each of those years, the number of reported illegal tobacco sales was reduced significantly – from 75 in fiscal 2007 to 24 in fiscal ’08, to just three in fiscal ’09. But by 2010, Wilusz said, the Tri-Town Health Department could no longer afford to subsidize the program.
“We teach the course manually,” Wilusz said. “It’s very, very labor-intensive. I have two full-time employees. Not only do they do their work but they’re also required to teach the class.
“So what we did was create a revolving account through the health district. We charged nominal fees to the retailers. We took that money and paid a staff member. … But the fees didn’t cover the cost of the program.”
The Tri-Town district continues to partially subsidize the program, he noted.
The online training, which is expected to be rolled out before the end of the year, will provide a much cheaper alternative to traditional instruction while also making it simpler for store clerks to complete the training, according to Wilusz.
He added that the stores should benefit from the online training because managers won’t have to find someone to fill in for a person attending a training session.
Store clerks who do not have reliable Internet access will be able to take advantage of area Wi-Fi hotspots, including one at the Tri-Town Health District office in Lee.
“We want to give the tools needed to the retailers so they can comply,” Wilusz said. “We don’t want to do enforcement and have to suspend people’s licenses.”
For more information, contact James Wilusz at (413) 243-5540.