S.J. YOUNGSTERS ASK MANAGERS AT 17 STORES TO MOVE SMOKING ADS

It was a tall order for the young anti-smoking brigade. But students from
San Jose's Washington Elementary School overcame their shyness Saturday and
braved grown-up store managers, asking them to remove smoking ads from the
eye level of kids and cut down on the number of posters in their windows.

The youngsters got a mixed reception at the 17 markets, liquor stores,
mini-marts and mom-and-pop groceries they visited, armed with fact-filled
speeches and no-smoking pamphlets. The six groups of girls and boys from
Washington as well as Castillero and Willow Glen middle schools went into
stores in groups of five as part of a project financed by cigarette tax
money authorized by voters a decade ago in Proposition 99.

``The people at Bill's Market rushed us out,'' said fourth-grader Erica
Jimenez, 10.

Beatriz Soto and Evelyn Arreola, both 10, backed out of Ooka's Market when
the new owners, busy taking inventory, shooed them away without letting
them speak.

They weren't really scared, the girls said after, because they'd done
practice sessions at school and had been told to be prepared to meet some
shopkeepers who wouldn't appreciate their message. Besides, Rene Picazo,
14, of Willow Glen Middle School said he was there to help them if things
got rough during the first of two months of visits to shops in their
neighborhood just south of downtown San Jose.

They find a listener

Erica, Evelyn and Beatriz were visibly relieved, however, when George
Haddad of Alma Liquors smiled at them and listened to all their speeches.

Haddad not only agreed to remove the row of cigarette posters below his
checkout counter but also started pulling the placards off while the kids
talked to him.

``The cigarette people won't be happy,'' he said as he ripped out the
nails. ``But I don't care. I want to make the kids happy.''

When she got outside, Erica smiled. ``He was the nicest one so far,'' she said.

Haddad told a reporter he didn't mind the visit. ``But it won't do any
good. What the children need are educational programs,'' he said.

Washington's pupils aren't the first in Santa Clara County to take on
tobacco recruiting on their own time in their own neighborhoods. But they
are the smallest, said Trish Jensen of the Stanford Center for Research in
Disease Prevention.

Since 1994, she said, both public and private high school students have
carried out similar anti-smoking projects throughout Santa Clara County.

``Washington's are the first grammar school kids to be involved,'' Jensen said.

It will take time to see if the little ones are as successful as Sunnyvale
teenagers were in their recent efforts.

``We'd never measured the effectiveness before then,'' Jensen said. ``But
we evaluated Sunnyvale (after students confronted shop owners) and found a
68 percent reduction in the number of ads below the counter.''

The leader of the neighborhood project is a student himself. At 21, Mark
Lopez formally finished the kindergarten-to-fifth-grade classes at
Washington 10 years ago. But the San Jose State University junior never
really left the elementary school campus a few blocks from his home.

Lopez has worked with the students -- which over the years included his
brother and two sisters -- in a variety of roles throughout his studies at
Castillero and Pioneer High School and currently is the San Jose Unified
School District's outreach consultant and homework-center coordinator at
Washington.

Two weeks ago, at one of the first meetings held after students volunteered
for the project, the kids were told to be cooperative and
non-confrontational when they took their message to the business community.

Why they do it

Lopez also had the 10 youngsters at the meeting discuss what smoking means
to them and explain why they were willing to give up their Saturday
mornings every two weeks for months to battle tobacco.

Maria Salas, 10, volunteered because ``The posters are in the store windows
and by the candy (shelf).''

Gabriela Lorenzo, 11, was more blunt about her reason for battling tobacco.
``It gives you cancer,'' she said.

Anabel Cardena, 10, nodded. ``It could kill you.'' she said, wrinkling her
nose as the group talked about how smoking smells up the house. ``Two of my
uncles smoke. They say they can't stop.''

Lance Lopez, 10, also was inspired by an uncle to turn out for the
anti-smoking crusade.

``I'm doing it because my uncle, Alfredo Lopez, had a heart attack and had
to have open-heart surgery,'' he said. ``He had to give up smoking. Two
packs a day.''