H. B. 2094
(By Delegate Spencer)
[Introduced February 10, 1993; referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary.]
A BILL to amend article nine-a, chapter sixteen of the code of
West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated section
two-a, relating to prohibiting the offer, sale, or gift of
tobacco products by or from vending machines activated by
the insertion of coins or other currency; prohibiting the
offer, sale or gift to persons under the age of eighteen
years of tokens for tobacco-product vending machines; and
establishing criminal penalties for violations.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That article nine-a, chapter sixteen of the code of West
Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be
amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section two-a
to read as follows:
ARTICLE 9A. TOBACCO USAGE RESTRICTIONS.
§16-9A-2a. Sale or gift of tobacco products by coin-activated
vending machines prohibited; sale or gift of tokens
for tobacco vending machines to persons under the
age of eighteen years prohibited; penalty.
(a) No person, firm or corporation may offer, sell, give or
furnish, or cause to be offered, sold, given or furnished, any
cigarette, cigar, pipe, snuff, chewing tobacco, other tobacco
product in any form, cigarette paper, or any other paper
prepared, manufactured or made for the purpose of smoking tobacco
or of smoking any other substance, by or from a vending machine
that is in any way activated by the insertion of coins or other
currency. The provisions of this paragraph shall not be
construed to prohibit the offering, selling, giving or furnishing
of such items by or from vending machines that are activated
solely by the insertion of nonmonetary tokens or other
nonmonetary devices.
(b) No person, firm or corporation may offer, sell, give or
furnish any person under the age of eighteen years any
nonmonetary token or tokens or other nonmonetary devices that are
designed or intended to be inserted into and thereby to activate,
any vending machine containing any quantity of cigarettes,
cigars, pipes, snuff, chewing tobacco in any form, cigarette
paper or any other paper prepared, manufactured or made for the
purpose of smoking tobacco or of smoking any other substance.
(c) Any person, firm or corporation violating any provision
of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction
thereof, shall be fined not less than fifty nor more than one
hundred dollars for the first offense, and, for each subsequentoffense, shall be fined not less than one hundred nor more than
five hundred dollars.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to prohibit the sale or
gift of tobacco products by or from coin-activated vending
machines; to prohibit the sale or gift of tokens for tobacco
vending machines to persons under the age of eighteen years, and
to establish misdemeanor criminal penalties for violations.
This section is new; therefore, strike-throughs and
underscoring have been omitted.