[Ord. #BH:59]
The Bernards Township Board of Health hereby finds and declares that:
a. 
The Surgeon General of the United States has called for a ban on the sale of tobacco by vending machines.
b. 
Medical and scientific evidence demonstrates that tobacco usage is addictive and causes serious health problems.
c. 
The Surgeon General of the United States has concluded that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addictive in the same sense as are drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
d. 
The Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse has concluded that the majority of the 420,000 Americans who die each year from tobacco use became addicted to nicotine as adolescents before the age of legal consent.
e. 
The selling, giving or furnishing of tobacco products or electronic smoking devices to a person under 21 years of age is prohibited in New Jersey by N.J.S.A. 2A:170-51.4.
[Ord. #BH:104, 3-12-2020, amended]
f. 
It is difficult to prevent the sale of tobacco to minors by vending machines, and no penalty has been imposed by state statute upon minors for the purchase of tobacco.
[1]
Editor’s Note: This title was added 2-11-2016 by Ord. #BH:97.
[Ord. #BH:59]
This chapter is hereby adopted to safeguard the public health by declaring tobacco use, in general, to be a public nuisance and public health problem; by prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors; by prohibiting tobacco vending machines and tobacco vending machine sales; and by prohibiting the use of self-service tobacco displays.