Signs warning people of strict penalties for anyone caught selling alcohol or cigarettes to under 18s are to be prominently displayed by law.

A new amendment has been added to the city's existing regulations for protecting local minors and will be submitted to the Standing Committee of the local People's Congress for its third review at the end of this month. Voting will then take place for final approval.

"The maximum penalty is currently set at 500 yuan (US$60), but it is subject to further change," said Huang Jue, an official from the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress.

"This new rule warns both shopkeepers and children about the laws around selling alcohol or cigarettes to children."

A Chinese law implemented in 1999 forbade the sale of booze or cigarettes to minors.

Many shops are still ignoring the law.

"The law doesn't include specific punishments for doing so," said Huang.

"So we are trying to make sure it happens." "What we are trying to do now is to carry out it in exact measures."

Statistics shows that among the 320 million smokers in the country, more than 5 million are high school students or primary school children. Their average age is 14 and a half.

"Every day, about 80,000 children start smoking," said an official from the Shanghai Association of Smoking and Health.

More than 95 percent of juvenile delinquents apparently started their lives of crime because of smoking.

"When they can't find money for smoking, they try to get it in inappropriate ways," said the official.

There are still difficulties in how to actually enforce the regulations. But challenges exist like how to carry out the regulation.

Random visits to some 15 local shops that sell alcohol or cigarettes discovered that just five of them displayed an obvious sign stating the illegality of selling the products to minors.

Even shops that did display signs were seen still selling to schoolboys.

Shopkeepers claim there are no laws requiring them to demand identity cards from customers and that they find it difficult to tell.

"Some of them say they're buying the products for their parents," said one cigarette shop owner.

(China Daily November 9, 2004)