Princeton Board of Health raises minimum age to purchase tobacco to 21

The Princeton Board of Health adopted an ordinance on Tuesdayraising the minimum age to purchase tobacco and other smoking products to 21.

Princeton is the seventh town in New Jersey and the first in Mercer Countyto have implemented such an ordinance.The statewide minimum age to purchase tobacco in New Jersey is 19.

The adoption of the ordinance follows arecommendation by the Board of Health last month by approving the introduction of the ordinance.

Mayor Liz Lempert said she supported the new ordinance.

“The longer you can put off someone taking their first puff the more likely it will be that they’ll never start,” Lempert said.

The feedback Lempert has received on the anti-smoking measure has been highly positive, Lempert said.

“I think it’s more that we’ve tried to be practical in Princeton and a leader in the state when it comes to creating a smoke-free environment in our parks and outside of our municipal buildings,” Lempert said.

In 2013, the town of Princeton enacted a ban on outdoor smoking on municipal property, including municipal buildings, parks, pools and town-owned recreation areas, becoming the first town in Mercer County to do so. The town has the ability to issue fines for violations of this ban.

However, Jorge Armenteros, owner of the cigar shop A Little Taste of Cuba, said he actively opposed the ban at a town council meeting.

“The saddest reason that I was opposing it was specifically about the Princeton students,” Armenteros said, adding he develops a rapport with University students who return year after year and enjoys interacting with them at his shop. “We have a lot of fun selling cigars for ... celebratory events.”

Town leadership did not seem very receptive to opposing viewpoints on the ordinance, Armenteros said.

“It seemed like a done deal,” Armenteros said.

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Tom Davies GS questioned what kind of effect the ordinance would have.

“My experience from my home country is that minors don’t tend to start smoking at 18,” Davies said. “They don't tend to get access to their tobacco through legal means in the first place. I'm not sure that a law moving the age of buying tobacco ... to 21 would have any effect.”

Tianay Zeigler ’18 similarly said access to cigarettes should not prove difficult for interested students.

“I don’t really think it would make a difference either way because you could always probably get your hands on cigarettes,” Zeigler said. “Someone could go and buy it for you and hand it off. It’s basically the same way with alcohol.”

Karen Feng ’18 said there was a parallel situation between smoking ordinances and alcohol prohibition.

“I mean my opinion is that this is similar to what they’re already doing for the policy for alcohol and that clearly hasn’t really worked based on how the social scene at Princeton works, so I don’t think that this will be an effective policy,” Feng said.