Cigarette vending machine woes
An owner of a cigarette vending machine in Fukuoka has drawn national attention after he attached an age verification card to the machine to save potential customers the hassle of obtaining/using such an ID:
“It is an act that erodes the age-verifying system and the public’s confidence in the tobacco industry,” said a representative of the Tobacco Institute of Japan, referring to the man’s actions.
The ID cards, dubbed “taspo,” were introduced this year to combat underage smoking.
The institute had been poised to nullify the man’s vending machine license, which would have been a first in Japan. The Ministry of Finance’s Tobacco and Salt Industries Office also hinted at the possibility of punishment for the man if he kept up the practice.
According to the man, sales of cigarettes at the vending machine he manages dropped by about 20 percent from May, when the taspo ID card system was introduced in Fukuoka Prefecture.
In order to boost sales, the man attached a taspo ID card of a family member to the vending machine with a wire in late May. He also attached a paper to the machine, which reads, “This is a taspo ID card exclusively for this vending machine. Minors are not supposed to use the card.”
Yame Police Station was alerted to the case and asked the man to remove the taspo ID card from the vending machine, saying, “It is not favorable from an educational point of view.”
The man initially refused to abide by the request, saying, “It does not violate any law.”
“I think it is the responsibility of parents to decide whether their kids can buy cigarettes. I’m not going to remove the ID card unless there’s a law that regulates such a practice,” the man told the Mainichi.
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I agree with the man. I wouldn’t remove the card until they made the TASPO cards law. Parents should be educating their kids about the hazards of smoking anyway, like he said.
Since when do kids do what parents tell them?…
*pulls belt of pants*
Let me show you a thing or two about obeying your elders!
It’s crazy for there to even be cigarette vending machines, and beer too. If you want to control the distribution of something to minors, then you need to make some people responsible for this. No amount of wrinkle counting vending machines is going to help this.
EHM! Vending machines, especially the beer and cigarette vending machines, make this country glorious. A Japan without them would make me sad.
This cracks me up. He says the sale of cigarettes has dropped by 20%, but I wonder if he ever stopped to consider that those are all underage smokers. They should do a nationwide study of sales figures to see if they are all down by 20% because it would lend evidence to the theory.
I got my Taspo last week right before it came into force in Kansai. I’ve only used it once to help a drunk ojisan guy buy a pack of smokes, however.
One note for you that are going to make one, you can make almost face for your photo! How about a Taspo picture competition James? Whoever gets the silliest, scariest, or oddest picture on their Taspo wins.
The whole taspo thing makes me laugh. You have your picture on it but there is no way to check the photo at the machine to prove that card is yours. Also you can apply for the card via mail, that means there is no way to verify if any of the info you submit is true or even if that is really you in the picture.
If you don’t have a taspo you just have to go to the local combini to pick up a pack. In a country where most people don’t carry any form of ID I don’t think they will question anyone as long as they are not wearing a high school uniform.
I do wonder one thing tho…. taspo is a private non-government COMPANY, I wonder when taspo cards will cost money.
How can you obtain a taspo card as a tourist who wants to buy smokes from a vending machine (say on top of mount fuji)?
This is a really interesting point.
Im not getting one which is great so I can smoke less. (though I rarely do already)
Hitting the machine is much easier than going into a store and asking for them.
I couldnt give a toss about anyone else, finally a law is helping my no willpower ass.
are the cigarette machines inside bars, izakayas, and clubs going to require taspo too? sounds like a dumb question but i’m just wondering…i mean they’re requiring taspo on all vending machines in the country. since you pretty much have to be over 20 to get into a club here, they wont need taspo right?
or maybe i should just quit. i should stop being the typical japanese who hurries out of shinjuku station after a long commute and happily smokes at the designated areas.
Here we also have a law that restricts alcohol and cigars for people below 18 but you can buy boxes of cigarette on the streets anywhere and even I can order a bottle of beer at a normal street restaurant.