The City Council finds that:
(A) Approximately 434,000 Americans die each year of diseases caused by cigarette smoking;
(B) The Surgeon General of the Public Health Service has determined that smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in this country;
(C) Nicotine in tobacco has been found by the 1988 report of the Surgeon General, “The Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction,” to be a powerfully addictive drug, and it is therefore important to prevent young people from using nicotine until they are mature and capable of making an informed and rational decision;
(D) Most adults who smoke wish to quit, a majority of current adult smokers have tried to quit without success, and one-half of all teenagers who have been smoking for five years or more have made at least one serious but unsuccessful attempt to quit;
(E) Every day more than 3,000 minors begin smoking; one-half of smokers begin before the age of 18, and 90% begin before the age of 21;
(F) Minors spent more than $1,000,000,000 on cigarettes and other tobacco products every year; and
(G) The city can adopt legislation on regulating the sale and distribution of tobacco products pursuant to the authority set forth in Article I of the Charter of the City of Albuquerque and Article X, Section 6 of the Constitution of the State of New Mexico.
(H) One third (33%) of New Mexico students have smoked cigarettes in the past month; and
(I) In Albuquerque, the non-compliance rate of merchants (merchants selling tobacco to minors) is 23%; and
(J) The Surgeon General, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Institute of Medicine have concluded that youth access to tobacco products, especially illegal tobacco sales to minors by retail outlets, is a major contributing factor to tobacco initiation, use and addiction among children and adolescents; and
(K) The Surgeon General, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and local public health agencies and private health organizations have found that cigarettes and other tobacco products are easily available to minors from retail outlets which sell tobacco products. Therefore, strong legislative action and enforcement are necessary to curtail the wide availability of tobacco products to minors from retail sales; and
(L) Present methods of prohibiting tobacco sales and distribution to minors have proven ineffective in preventing tobacco sales and distribution to minors; and
(M) It is in the public interest to regulate the manner of sale and distribution of tobacco products in order to promote retailer compliance with the state Tobacco Products Act prohibiting tobacco sales to minors, and to promote the health, safety and welfare of the residents of Albuquerque under eighteen years of age.
('74 Code, § 6-31-1) (Ord. 40-1991; Am. Ord. 28-1998)