Top 4 Reasons For Compliance Failure Just about everyone who works behind the counter in a convenience store or a grocery store knows by now that it's against the law to sell tobacco to minors. So why do retailers still fail compliance checks?

Imagine you're at the register and a customer, who doesn't look much older than your kid brother, asks for a pack of cigarettes. You check his ID and sure enough he's too young, so you refuse the sale. The teenager heads outside and starts talking to a person in a parked car. Next thing you know, the person is standing in front of you asking for the same brand the teenager just asked for. Again, you do what you've been trained to do. "I'm not allowed to sell you those cigarettes because it appears you're buying for a minor," you say.

Driver licenses in California are color-coded to identify a minor, so it should be pretty easy for a front line employee to identify a 16-year-old trying to make an illegal purchase of cigarettes. But law enforcement in Yolo County, outside Sacramento, find that frequently the sales associates they cite in enforcement stings have sold to minors who present valid ID's that show they are too young to buy cigarettes.

We often hear that carding is no big deal, that it's easy... but my response is usually, "you might think so, but it isn't." Please feel free to download and distribute to your employees. Let's think about steps...