Underage sales signage in vape shops: Comparison of stores near and far from California colleges

Abstract

Objective: Two-thirds of U.S. colleges are near vape shops, where higher rates of underage sales exist. This study examined vape shop compliance with state-mandated age-of-sale signs, the presence of age-of-entry signs and the tobacco industry’s “We Card” sign. Participants: Random sample of 614 California vape shops, stratified by distance to community colleges or 4-year universities/colleges; visited June–August, 2019. Methods: Logistic regressions examined whether signage varied by distance to colleges and whether stores sold other tobacco products (OTP). Results: Compliance with the state-mandated age-of-sale sign was 69.4%; vape-only stores were less compliant than vape + OTP (AOR = 0.39, 95% CI = 0.22,0.70). Age-of-entry signs were more common in vape-only (AOR = 1.87, 95% CI = 1.07,3.28) than vape + OTP stores. However, this difference was greater for vape-only stores near community colleges and attenuated for vape-only stores near 4-year universities/colleges. Conclusion: Improved enforcement and retailer education regarding age-of-sale signage are needed, particularly near colleges where greater potential for underage sales presumably exists.

Keywords:

• Colleges
• policy compliance
• Tobacco 21
• tobacco retailers
• underage tobacco sales
• vape shops

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to Lindsey Winn, MS for GIS support, GreenInfo Network for campus boundary shapefiles, and Ewald & Wasserman, LLC for data collection.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of Americaand received approval from the Institutional Review Board of Stanford University, Protocol ID 42275.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (R01 CA217165-01). The funders had no role in data collection, analysis, interpretation or decision to submit for publication.