Campaign launches against sale of ‘loosies’
Community members launched an effort Wednesday to work with Milwaukee’s tobacco retailers in an effort to end the sale of so-called “loosies,” single cigarettes sold at lower prices out of the pack, often to young people.
The efforts are part of an awareness campaign, called “No Singles/No Loosies,” by the Wisconsin African American Tobacco Prevention Network.
Retailers helped develop signs and window clings advising customers that the sale and purchase of single cigarettes are illegal. WAATPN aims to display the signs in every one of Milwaukee’s more than 800 tobacco retailers.
“This is an issue that has been on our minds and our hearts for quite some time,” WAATPN Director Lorraine Lathen said.
Community members hope to lower the high smoking rate for AfricanAmerican residents. From 2013-2017, the smoking rate among the state’s black residents was 28.2%. White residents had a smoking rate of 16.6%, according to data from the Wisconsin Behavioral Risk Factor Survey.
American Indian and multiracial groups had higher smoking rates than African-American residents, according to the survey.
Last year, the city’s fine for retailers caught selling single cigarettes increased nearly four times its original amount. A first offense was a $181 fine, while a second offense cost $321. Now, it’s $691 for an offense.
Young people who are under the legal buying age, as well as low-income residents who can’t afford packs, can become susceptible to single cigarette sales.
“We have been making gains,” Milwaukee Health Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik said. “We have to be smarter than them. We have to outfox these people that are targeting our community and our children and our youth.”
Mark Philon, a manager at Gas
Depot, 2707 W. Burleigh St., said his store will take part in the initiative. He said the store has run into issues with people buying packs of cigarettes and selling “loosies” outside the store.
“It’s making it bad for the youth that we call our future,” Philon said. “It’s making all the stores look horrible.”
Milwaukee Police Department Sgt. Chad Raden said he noticed that retailers with single cigarette sales often run into other problems, like loitering, drug dealing and underage alcohol sales. He noted that selling or buying single cigarettes is evading federal and state taxes.
Jack Kheiri, a retailer at Superior Foods, 1535 W. North Ave., said he is hoping to see more local retailers rally behind this issue.
“We are doing the right thing for the community,” Kheiri said.
A survey conducted in 2016 showed that nine out of 10 respondents thought single cigarettes were being sold frequently to minors under 18, according to a WAATPN news release. The same survey found that 75% of respondents thought single cigarette sales were a problem in Milwaukee.
Emma Durkin-Wagner, a public health student at Saint Louis University, worked on the “No Singles/No Loosies” initiative as part of her internship for Wisconsin Area Health Education Centers.
She helped approach retailers to get them involved in the campaign. She said she received pushback from some retailers, who said they didn’t sell single cigarettes. She told them the campaign was to educate customers, too.
“I’m all about prevention,” DurkinWagner said. “It was a great way to get involved in the community.”
Nia Kamara, a 17-year-old national youth ambassador for FACT, a program that works to spread awareness about tobacco’s effects, said she has seen her peers in Milwaukee’s innercity use single cigarettes.
“I just hope that retailers will stop selling them,” Kamara said of single cigarettes. “A lot of people don’t really know the hard stuff that’s in these products . ... Just because your friends do it or maybe a rapper does it, that doesn’t mean it’s cool to do it.”