Retailers caught selling flavoured cigars to kids

In a small change to its sting operations for catching retailers selling tobacco to minors, the Province of P.E.I. has found stores selling flavoured cigars to youth.

'The concern is that they feel it's less dangerous.' — Joe Bradley, environmental health manager

The cigars have been a source of complaint for the Canadian Cancer Society, which says they are aimed specifically at children, and the flavours sound like something you would find in a candy store: peach, wild berry, chocolate mint.

The price is also a worry. At $1.50 for an individual cigar, they are affordable.

"The concern is that they feel it's less dangerous to their health than the actual cigarettes would be," Joe Bradley, the province's manager of environmental health, told CBC News on Thursday.

"It is a tobacco product and contains most, if not all, of the same types of dangerous constituents that a cigarette does."

Bradley says this is the first time some of the young people who were sent into stores by provincial officials to try to buy tobacco attempted to purchase the cigars. Of the 10 retailers caught selling tobacco products to minors, six were pinched for selling flavoured cigars.

Bradley is warning retailers to take this seriously, "because of the concern that has been brought up in the past number of months, and we just want to make sure that everyone does know that these are, indeed, a tobacco product.

"They should not be sold to someone who is under 19."

Bradley said that with the growing popularity of the flavoured cigars, it's likely more of young people sent into stores for the next round of stings will try to buy that product.

The province has been running stings on youth tobacco sales for years, and in 2006 began making public the list of retailers who have been caught.