Needham’s Speedway and 7-Eleven face 14-day license suspensions and $200 fines after failing routine compliance checks and attempting to sell underage customers nicotine products — again.
This is not the first time the two stores have violated Needham’s age-gated policy, which prohibits the sale of tobacco products to customers born after Jan. 1, 2004. The policy is designed to promote a “nicotine-free” generation by cutting off access to addictive products like cigarettes, vapes and nicotine pouches.
Of the six Needham stores assessed in April’s compliance checks, only Speedway and 7-Eleven were repeat offenders. In a public hearing before the Board of Health May 15, store representatives accepted responsibility for the violations and clarified next steps to prevent future incidents.
Prior to these violations, both stores voluntarily installed electronic ID scan systems. These scan systems are not required by Needham, said assistant director of public health Tara Gurge.
“We only require that the clerks check everyone’s IDs to ensure the date is in compliance with the NFG date in Needham and not selling to anyone born after January 1, 2004,” she clarified. “If the establishment wants to install an ID scan system and have their clerks scan every ID to help with compliance, that’s up to them.”
Though seemingly straightforward, the systems installed by Speedway and 7-Eleven were vulnerable to manual overrides from employees.
Speedway, whose employee bypassed the system to enter the date of birth for an underage customer, said employee failure coincided with an IT error.
“Somehow, between that time in February when we confirmed that it was working, till this violation date, that configuration was rolled back,” representative Anna-Maria Dagliere said during the public hearing. “At this time, I don’t have any information on why it was rolled back, how it was rolled back.” She added that the store is working to get the technology running correctly. Although team members are already trained not to sell to customers born on or after Jan. 1, 2004, she said the store is also working with training teams to better implement nicotine-free generation law into future trainings.
7-Eleven, whose employee entered the date of birth given and sold a pack of Marlboro Reds without asking for ID verification (until the customer returned to collect a receipt), said the store will be updating scan systems to prevent manual overrides in future. Store representative Hiren Patel said differing nicotine-free cutoff dates across jurisdictions have caused some confusion “in terms of implementing the technology” — making it difficult for chain stores like 7-Eleven and Speedway to choose a specific date to program into their ID scan systems.
“Unfortunately, I’m kind of stuck between 7-Eleven and this [Jan. 1, 2004] regulation in terms of technology, and I cannot change the technology as if it was a mom-pop store,” Patel said. He added that he has been talking to the regional 7-Eleven IT representative daily to find a solution.
Patel requested the Board of Health’s assistance in assessing newly updated technology, to be sure it will flag underage IDs.
“We take responsibility with what happened,” he clarified. “I’m not trying to make excuses — I just want to make sure this system works the way it’s supposed to. This scenario should not repeat again, I can assure you that, assuming the technology works.”
Both stores terminated the employees responsible for the violations. If Speedway and 7-Eleven fail another compliance check within a 36-month timeframe, they will face $300 fines and 30-day license suspensions — a first for Needham, said Gurge.
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