Group calls out retailers for underage sales
Members of Dover Youth 2 Youth show off some of the merchandise promoting marijuana use sold to children and teens in the group Tuesday afternoon in Dover.
Members of Dover Youth 2 Youth show off some of the merchandise promoting marijuana use sold to children and teens in the group Tuesday afternoon in Dover. Photo by Shawn St.Hilaire/Fosters.com
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Members of Dover Youth 2 Youth show off some of the merchandise promoting marijuana use sold to children and teens in the group Tuesday afternoon in Dover. Photo by Shawn St.Hilaire/Fosters.com
Members of Dover Youth 2 Youth show off some of the merchandise promoting marijuana use sold to children and teens in the group Tuesday afternoon in Dover.Members of Dover Youth 2 Youth Grace Roy, 15, left, Jordan Schneider, 17, Conor Wiley, 16, and Alec Willett, 16, talk about their challenge to retail locations in New Hampshire to stop selling products promoting drug use to children and teens Tuesday afternoon at the McConnell Center in Dover.
By Casey Conley
cconley@fosters.com
Posted Oct. 13, 2015 at 6:45 PM
DOVER — Youth 2 Youth members are calling on retailers to stop selling drug- and alcohol-themed merchandise, especially to children.
Members of the Dover student group bought clothing, skateboards, posters and accessories adorned with marijuana leaves from the Fox Run Mall and three other malls around the state, Youth 2 Youth student leaders said during a Tuesday press conference.
“We feel that allowing kids to purchase these products is a problem because it makes it seem that these harmful substances, specifically marijuana, have no consequences and are risk-free,” said Jordan Schneider, a Dover High School senior.
There are no laws against selling these items to people under 18, but the group believes young people will approach drugs with less caution if these images become mainstream.
Dover Youth 2 Youth is an after-school anti-drug group comprised of Dover students. Dover Police Department oversees the group, which aims to raise awareness about the effects of substance abuse.
Over the summer, group members visited a handful of local and national retailers in the Fox Run Mall in Newington that sell items with drug and alcohol logos and messages. The students also made similar purchases in malls in Salem, Concord and Manchester on Columbus Day.
Students as young as 9 and 10 years old bought a wide range of products with marijuana logos or slogans. Others bought shot glasses and even a beer keg Halloween costume with little or no intervention from store clerks.
Dover Middle School seventh-grader Samantha Stone said she bought marijuana-themed socks at a Manchester Zumiez store with “no questions asked.”
“The cashier seemed very enthusiastic and chill about it,” Stone said.
Zumiez at Fox Run Mall was the only store where a clerk denied sale of a pot-themed skateboard, according to the group. However, a Zumiez store at Mall of New Hampshire in Manchester allowed a 9-year-old to buy a skateboard with pot leaves on it.
Attempts Tuesday to reach a Spencer’s spokesperson for comment on its sales policies were not successful. A Zumiez spokesman also could not be reached.
After successfully purchasing something deemed objectionable, the students returned with a letter outlining who they were and their concerns about such sales. Some store clerks were not receptive to their message, and others warned they would lose their jobs for not selling a particular item.
Some locally-owned shops were more receptive to the group. In a letter to Youth 2 Youth, the owner of Cell Fashion in Fox Run Mall said they would no longer sell marijuana-themed items to people under 18.
The owners of Custom T’s at the Mall of New Hampshire apologized for the sales and promised to keep an eye on buyers of certain custom shirts. Their e-mails also suggested they believed the offending items sold to Youth 2 Youth were gifts.
Youth 2 Youth has undertaken similar campaigns in recent years at Fox Run Mall. They decided to expand the campaign to the other malls to expand their message beyond the Seacoast.
The group holds fundraisers throughout the year and some of those proceeds were used for this campaign, according to Vicki Hebert, an adult coalition coordinator for Youth 2 Youth. The various items purchased for the campaign will be kept for display and educational purposes.
More than a dozen group members attended Tuesday’s press conference at the McConnell Center. Alec Willett, Conor Wiley, Grace Roy and Schneider led the event.
Youth 2 Youth also hosted a simultaneous press conference Tuesday afternoon in Concord.
For more info on the group, visit www.dovery2y.org
