Local businesses play a vital role in helping communities stay healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic. As we learn more about COVID-19, it is important that we continue to work together, sharing resources and information that help in reducing the spread and supporting the health of our community.

The Wisconsin WINS program partners with businesses throughout the year to provide resources on how to avoid underage tobacco and nicotine sales. At this time, tobacco retailers and employees who check the IDs of their customers, are faced with unique physical distancing challenges that can affect not only their business and income, but their mental, spiritual, and physical health.

It is recommended that all customers, employees, and businesses follow the below tips to keep the community safer while conducting business:

•Maintain social distancing, a minimum of six feet. Businesses should ask customers to show IDs through plastic or glass partitions or by placing them on the counter face up.

•Stay home when you are sick.

•Clean hands often, either with soap and water for 20 seconds or by using hand sanitizer that contain at least 60% alcohol.

•Routinely sanitize frequently touched surfaces and objects.

•Businesses place ID bar-code scanners or smartphone apps on the customer side of the sales counter for customers to complete self-scans, as able.

When selling tobacco, please remember:

•Current federal laws require that tobacco products cannot be sold to customers under age 21.

•If the date under the customer’s ID photo is in the future and they are not 21, refuse the sale.

Tobacco retailers, along with parents and our local community, must work to keep tobacco products out of the hands of kids. Next time you see your local retailer check an ID, say “thank you” for helping keep our youth healthy. If we work together, we can help Wisconsin Win.