Local Licensing: Lessons Learned Throughout the Ongoing Process

Title: Local Licensing: Lessons Learned throughout the Ongoing Process Audience: This lecture will benefit those interested in lessons local health departments in Utah have learned in localizing tobacco licensing and regulations. Key Points: The presentation will focus on using licensing as a way to regulate retailers by monitoring and increasing compliance with tobacco control laws in order to reduce the rates of youth initiation and adult consumption of tobacco products. This can be done through a number of methods including: regulating the placement of products, limiting the number of or density of tobacco retailers in a certain area, requiring retailers to be a certain distance from one another or from schools, and a number of other methods. Local efforts can also complement and build on state requirements that are already in place, thus strengthening the overall tobacco efforts statewide. Educational Experience: The presentation will cover the ongoing process and lessons learned thus far by local health districts in Utah as they work on developing local licensing ordinances and regulations. The presentation will also showcase a method of collecting data from local retail outlets to be used in support of the local licensing initiatives. Benefits: Licensing is an emerging area in tobacco prevention and control that stands to have beneficial effects in communities where adopted. Moreover, strong local licensing ordinances, combined with education, have the potential to reduce youth access rates by decreasing illegal sales of tobacco products to minors.