In 2005, the Los Angeles County Tobacco Control and Prevention Program funded the Office of Samoan Affairs (OSA) to work with local cities and elected officials to pass Tobacco Retailer License (TRL) permits in an effort to reduce youth access to tobacco.  Research has shown that the younger an individual begins smoking, the harder it is for him or her to quit. Data also revealed that a third of all young smokers will eventually die of a smoking-related illness—a very high price to pay for a lapse in judgment.  

    The implementation of a TRL permit will make retailers more responsible and prompt them to abide by all national, state, and local tobacco laws, to ensure that the impressionable youth are not easily swayed, targeted, and sold tobacco at local grocery stores, convenient stores, liquor stores, gas stations, donut shops, and other such establishments.

    In 2005, OSA staff member, Ruth Satele Tagaloa, and Seumaninoa Puaina chose the City of Carson as the first place to begin work on passing a TRL ordinance. Based on initial needs assessment gathered from youth purchase surveys and public opinion surveys conducted from August 2005 to February 2006, retailers were selling tobacco to minors at a rate of 24.2%—about 2 times greater than the California state illegal sales rate of 10.4 %.  What this basically meant was, 1 in 4 retailers in the City of Carson was willingly selling tobacco to children.  

    Armed with this evidence, OSA established the Carson Coalition for Tobacco-Free Youth, a coalition of concerned community leaders, business leaders, community organizations, youth organizations, and traditional leaders working to encourage the Carson City Council to pass a TRL Ordinance to address this issue and ensure that youth are not targeted and sold tobacco illegally.  The city council embraced the coalition’s efforts and unanimously passed a strong TRL ordinance on November 21, 2006 that went into effect on March 1, 2007.  The TRL Ordinance established a permit fee of $500.00 that is renewed yearly by tobacco retailers with active enforcement by the Carson Sheriffs to ensure adherence to all national, state, and local tobacco laws.

    Feeding off of the momentum from Carson, OSA staff moved to Carson’s sister city Compton and began working with Compton High School youth from November 2006 to the present.  OSA staff, along with student volunteers from Compton High, formed the Compton TAASK (Tobacco-control Advocates Against Selling to Kids) Force.  Needs Assessment surveys painted a more dire picture of illegal tobacco sales in Compton, with well over 36.2% of retailers selling to minors.  With this data, the Compton TAASK Force approached the Compton City Council on June 5, 2007 and made a presentation before the mayor and the city council.  The youth gave moving testimonies of their experiences while conducting the surveys and their astonishment at how careless and deliberate the stores were in selling to them and their complete disregard for the law.  Community advocates and leaders also testified about the problem and finally the Compton TAASK Force Student leader, Pernell Jones, a Compton resident and CSUDH college student completed the testimonies with a powerful and moving speech that brought home the importance of this issue to the Compton community.  The city council voted unanimously to draft a TRL Ordinance for the City of Compton.  The TRL Ordinance in the City of Compton is up for a second reading on July 3, 2007 and should be adopted 30 days after the second reading and implemented 3 months after its adoption as a city ordinance.

    All of our efforts as a community organization would not be possible without strong leadership and support from the top.  Our Director, June Pouesi, puts us in a position to succeed and any success that is accomplished is a team effort. The OSA family has worked tirelessly to ensure the well-being of our community and this is just one of many examples of the kind of work that is done on a daily basis in hopes of ensuring a good quality of life for all members of the communities that OSA serves.  

    We would like to give special acknowledgement to our City of Carson Champion, Councilman Mike Gipson, and City of Compton Councilwoman Yvonne Arceneaux. Without their support and leadership, we wouldn’t have been as successful.