The Santa Clara County, Calif. Board of Supervisors will be debating raising the minimum age to purchase tobacco products and electronic smoking devices from 18 to 21 in its unincorporated areas. Supervisor Ken Yeager introduced the proposal at Tuesday’s meeting, and the board will hear an administrative report on the matter at its June 9 meeting. Santa Clara County encompasses 15 cities, including San Jose, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and Gilroy, with another 22 census designated places and unincorporated communities. While the proposal would not affect those cities, Palo Alto and San Jose have begun the discussion on similar age increases. Should the proposal pass, it would likely go into effect on Jan. 1, with Yeager saying that he hopes it will give the cities in the county time to pass their own age increases so that the purchasing age would be the same throughout the county. Santa Clara County’s total population was estimated at just under 1.9 million people in 2014, making it the 16th largest county by population in the country.
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