Business policy practices that predict sales of tobacco.

This pilot study with tobacco merchants asked how policy practices may influence sales of tobacco to youth. This study compared tobacco merchant new employee training and business policies and practices to business compliance data. Licensed tobacco merchants in a rural Minnesota county were mailed surveys regarding their new employee training and business policies practices. The returned surveys (75.9%, N = 44) were compared with tobacco compliance results that indicated if the business sold tobacco to youth during a county compliance check. The major finding from this study was that the survey respondents who did not sell tobacco to youth provided training on fake identification cards (68.0%, n = 17). Tobacco merchants who provided additional information on fake identification cards (40%,n = 6), chi(2)(2, n = 43) 6.66, p = .036, were more likely to not sell tobacco to youth than the merchants who did not provide fake identification card information.