Central Oregon stores featured in anti-smoking ad

At the Powell Butte Country Store, you’ll find a line of customers eager for their lunchtime corn dogs and a cool soda.

What you won’t find — tobacco ads.

“This is the space where normally you would have advertising at the counter. As you can see, ours is nice and pretty,” store co-owner, Mindy Sloper explained Monday.

Sloper and her husband have owned the store for 22 years. Every year, tobacco distributors urge them to hang ads in and outside the store, even offering discount incentives.

The Slopers say thanks, but no thanks.

“Being across the street from the school and the church, we decided that was not the way we wanted to go,” Sloper said.

The Slopers’ decision caught the eye of Smoke Free Oregon — a movement seeking a healthier environment for Oregonians.

“They came out to shoot a video with us in May. At that time, I thought it was just going to be on the Smoke Free Oregon website,” Sloper said. “Then they called a couple months later and said, ‘We’d like to make a commercial.'”

The commercial runs statewide and also features a testimony from the manager at the Madras Truck Stop.

Sloper’s decision not to hang tobacco ads is also catching the eye of local families with young kids.

“I do appreciate it because it’s just one less thing that you have to worry about,” said Maggie Townsend of Powell Butte. “There’s so many other pressures on our kids at such a young age, that I know he’s not staring it in the eye and then having to ask questions about ‘What is this?’ and ‘Why is it bad?'”

According to the Oregon Department of Education, 3,100 kids in Oregon started smoking in 2013. That’s more than graduated from all public high schools in Medford, Bend and Pendleton.

For businesses like the Country Store, it’s time to clear the smoke and put out the tobacco industry’s power over kids.

“A person can make a choice to smoke, that is why we sell cigarettes, that is their choice if they’re grown ups. But we don’t need to make it look pretty for our youngsters,” Sloper said.

For more information on Smoke Free Oregon, visit: http://smokefreeoregon.com/

If you want help kicking the habit, here are some Websites:

Deschutes County Health Department: http://www.deschutes.org/Health-Services.aspx

Jefferson County Health Department: http://www.co.jefferson.or.us/

Crook County Health Department: http://co.crook.or.us/Departments/HealthDepartment/HealthHome/tabid/2169/Default.aspx