Greenwood Village – At the beginning of school last year, dozens of Cherry Creek High School students would gather to smoke cigarettes during their lunch period at a corner of the Belleview Square shopping center, a block away.
Nowadays, the scene is quite different.
Since the city made it illegal for minors to possess tobacco products, the once-popular gathering spot hosts just a few defiant souls who huddle behind shopping carts or in alleys, hoping not to be seen.
“I really don’t see why the city thinks it’s that big of a deal if we’re smoking,” said sophomore Josh Valencia, as he searched for a private place to light up Tuesday.
Local police will begin enforcing the ban in earnest as early as next week, doling out tickets that could come with a fine from $100 to $250. Greenwood Village is one of nine metro-area municipalities that have cracked down on kids with tobacco.
“There are already laws against kids buying tobacco, so it makes sense to prohibit them from possessing it,” Mayor Nancy Sharpe said. “The primary reason we’re doing this is the health issue.”
Greenwood Village officials hope the city’s rules will prevent kids from even trying tobacco at all.
Already, nearly 40 cities and counties in Colorado have some type of law against minors with tobacco, including Denver, Boulder, Englewood, Glendale, Littleton, Northglenn, Parker and Westminster.
Whether such bans will ultimately lower teen smoking is a matter of debate.
Few studies have shown that tobacco-possession laws are effective, said Arnold Levinson, assistant professor of preventive medicine at the University of Colorado at Denver and the CU Health Sciences Center.
“We don’t have evidence that these types of laws work, but it may be because we’re not seeing the laws enforced properly,” said Levinson, who studies tobacco control. “I think that cigarette sales should be much more tightly controlled than they are now. There ought to be better ways of keeping the cigarettes out of kids’ hands.”
Greenwood Village passed the ordinance in early July, but Sharpe said kids were given a grace period.
School resource officers have been informing teens of the ban, and at Cherry Creek High, fliers were handed out on the first day of school.
Many Cherry Creek students have begun walking several blocks across the city’s boundary to G.M. Wallace Park in the Denver Tech Center to smoke, not knowing that Denver has a ban, too.
“It’s not like it’s going to stop anyone from doing it,” Valencia said.
His pal, Jacob Ojera, 15, agreed, as he sought a “safe” place to smoke during lunch break.
“There’s already a law that you can’t buy cigarettes if you’re underage, but there are some kids whose parents condone smoking,” Ojera said. “If parents let their kids do it, then it should be no one else’s business.”
Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-820-1173 or mgonzales@denverpost.com.
