ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 3, 1997 TAG: 9701030096
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: WARREN FISKE STAFF WRITER
Teen-agers who illegally buy cigarettes and the store owners who sell them smokes would each be subject to a $500 fine under legislation state Attorney General Jim Gilmore said he will back this fall.
The current maximum fine for teens under 18 and store owners is $50.
"It's a slap on the wrist," said Mark Minor, a spokesman for Gilmore, this year's presumptive GOP nominee for governor. "We're trying to put some real teeth into teen-age smoking laws."
Gilmore also will propose turning over enforcement of teen-age smoking laws to the state's department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. The laws are now under the domain of local police departments and are enforced unevenly around the state.
The teen-age smoking laws were on long list of bills that Gilmore said on Thursday he plans to support in this winter's General Assembly session. The legislature will convene Wednesday.
Gilmore reiterated pledges to reserve $250 million a year of the state's Literary Fund - collected from traffic and court fines - for school construction. Only $80 million is now reserved for building schools.
He also proposed increasing fines of penalties for church arsonists. He pledged to push for such legislation last summer in the wake of several fires at black churches.
LENGTH: Short : 36 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1997by CNB