[Ord. #BH:59]
The Bernards Township Board of Health hereby
finds and declares that:
a. The Surgeon General of the United States has called
for a ban on the sale of tobacco by vending machines.
b. Medical and scientific evidence demonstrates that
tobacco usage is addictive and causes serious health problems.
c. The Surgeon General of the United States has concluded
that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addictive in the same
sense as are drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
d. The Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse
has concluded that the majority of the 420,000 Americans who die each
year from tobacco use became addicted to nicotine as adolescents before
the age of legal consent.
e. The selling, giving or furnishing of tobacco products or electronic
smoking devices to a person under 21 years of age is prohibited in
New Jersey by N.J.S.A. 2A:170-51.4.
[Ord. #BH:104, 3-12-2020, amended]
f. It is difficult to prevent the sale of tobacco to
minors by vending machines, and no penalty has been imposed by state
statute upon minors for the purchase of tobacco.
[Ord. #BH:59]
This chapter is hereby adopted to safeguard
the public health by declaring tobacco use, in general, to be a public
nuisance and public health problem; by prohibiting the sale of tobacco
to minors; by prohibiting tobacco vending machines and tobacco vending
machine sales; and by prohibiting the use of self-service tobacco
displays.