Waukon Police Department to host Tobacco Compliance Training

Sound the bell because school's back in session for tobacco retailers. Area clerks will go back to school to receive state training on the "ABC's" of selling tobacco products.
In coordination with the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division (ABD), the Waukon Police Department will teach a tobacco compliance training class Thursday, March 3 from 12 to 2 p.m. Training will be held at the Robey Memorial Library located at 401 First Avenue NW in Waukon. Registration is exclusively available via the Iowa ABD's web site at www.IowaABD.com.
The two-hour class will teach the fundamentals of tobacco regulation, laws and penalties, driver's license evaluation, situational evaluation, and age verification techniques.
Clerks that attend the training and pass the online test will receive a certificate that is valid for two years. Certified clerks who fail by selling tobacco to kids will not be sent to detention to wash chalk boards, but rather have their licenses revoked and face a hefty fine outlined in the accompanying chart.
Retailers, however, may use the training as an affirmative defense against a civil penalty once in a four-year period. In order to assert the affirmative defense, the clerk that made the illegal sale must have been certified through the state's compliance training program.
"Education is an important element in the old-school problem of kids getting tobacco," notes Lynn Walding, Iowa ABD administrator. "The classroom training will seat clerks 'front and center' to achieve tobacco sales compliance."
The tobacco compliance training class will teach clerks that keeping tobacco from Iowa's kids doesn't have to be difficult. For more information or to register for an upcoming training opportunity visit www.IowaABD.com.