Council Votes to Lock Cigarette Dispensers

In an attempt to prevent minors from buying cigarettes, the Cambridge City Council voted seven to one Monday night to require that all cigarette vending machines in the city have lock-out devices.

With these devices, a customer seeking to purchase cigarettes from a machine must request an attending salesperson to press a button inactivating the lock. The salesperson is supposed to ascertain that the customer is over 18 before allowing the sale.

The ordinance passed is less strict than the one originally proposed by Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55, which called for a ban on the machines in the city.

"We didn't have the votes on a stronger one," Duehay said.

Installing lock-out devices as an alternative to the ban was suggested by vending machine distributors as a compromise which would prevent minors from procuring cigarettes without destroying the vending machine business.

Not all are convinced, however, that lockout devices would prevent minors from buying cigarettes.

"It's quite possible that people like bartenders, when they are busy, really might not bother to check the age and simply press the button whenever they see someone by the machine," Duehay said.

There is also concern that vending machines requiring a person to operate "defeat the purpose" of automation, said Mark Gottlieb, staff attorney for Boston's Tobacco Control Resource Center, who urged the council to support a total ban on the vending machines.

Councillor Edward N. Cyr said the adopted ordinance, in "protecting an industry," ignores the central issue in question, that of accessibility to minors.

"If someone suggested we sell alcohol through vending machines as long as we have lockout devices, we would know immediately that was inappropriate," Cyr said.

Some councillors said, however, that a stricter ordinance would hurt the financial interests not only of the vendors but also of Cambridge itself.

Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves '72, who supported the final ordinance, said he was concerned about banning the vending machines altogether because Boston already defeated this proposal, opting for lockout devices.

When a small city adopts laws stricter than those of a neighboring large city, Reeves said, people and businesses flock to the larger city. "I would be concerned if people didn't come to us for this reason," he said.

Councillor William H. Walsh, who abstained from voting on the locking devices, said a ban in Cambridge alone would be ineffective in preventing minors from obtaining cigarettes.

"It's like having clean air in Cambridge without the rest of the Commonwealth. It just wouldn't work," Walsh said.

The lock-out devices will be studied for one year, during which there will be an intensive public education campaign. "The industry now knows that they better make it work," Duehay said.