by Mike LaycockYORK'S tough line against shopkeepers who sell cigarettes to under-age children is set to continue for another year.

Trading standards officers from City of York Council have mounted controversial enforcement campaigns in recent years, using children to test whether the rules are being obeyed.

The sting resulted in 13 formal cautions being issued and five individuals being prosecuted so far in 1997/98, says a report to next Wednesday's environmental services committee.

Two shopowners were fined hundreds of pounds in January after their staff were caught selling cigarettes to a 12-year-old girl in on one of the council's sting operations.

In mitigation, both newsagents told magistrates it was very difficult to tell the age of young people and said all their staff had been instructed not to sell cigarettes to children under 16.

Evening Press columnist Peter Mullen suggested last year that the council was involved in entrapment and trickery, and that children were being confused and corrupted by officer telling them to be deceitful.

But this was vigorously denied by the trading standards department, which said children were not required to tell lies and were all unpaid volunteers acting with their parents' consent.

A report to next Wednesday's committee says the council's test purchase exercises were conducted strictly in compliance with Home Office guidelines to protect the children involved.

The report reveals that the get-tough stance also appears to have been effective in preventing sales to children under 16.Out of 73 test purchases made last July, only nine, or 12 per cent, of shopkeepers made illegal sales.

"This compared favourably with the last survey conducted in February 1997, when 36 per cent of traders visited sold cigarettes to the children," says trading standards head Colin Rumford.

Now the committee is being urged to carry out a similar exercise in 1998/99.

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