SAN DIEGO – A video showing two teenaged boys entering more than a dozen convenience stores throughout San Diego is being used as fodder to convince city officials to increase current regulations on licensed tobacco retailers, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The Palavra Tree, a San Diego-based alcohol, tobacco and drug prevention center, is using the video to help “persuade” city officials to increase local regulation of licensed tobacco retailers, notes the newspaper. Of the 39 stores targeted by the group’s stings, 19 sold tobacco products illegally to the two teens.

However, additional and more stringent regulations on licensed tobacco retailers are already making waves. Last month the San Diego City Council Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee endorsed a proposed ordinance that would require tobacco retailers to purchase a $100 annual license from the city. City Council is expected to vote on the ordinance when it reconvenes in September. A similar ordinance failed to pass the committee in April 2005, notes the newspaper.

The ordinance faces opposition from retailers as well as the American Lung Association, which says the proposal is “weak” and won’t raise the funds necessary to adequately support the cost of local enforcement, notes the newspaper.

Retailers also contend that the proposed ordinance duplicates state law and that an additional license would punish law-abiding operators.

“You’ve got some rotten eggs in any group,” Mission Gorge Arco owner Amad Attisha told the newspaper. “There are some bad convenience stores that do sell (tobacco to minors), and they need to be weeded out. But this is an undue ordinance.”