It was Jill Ory's turn, and she was a little nervous.

The tiny 15-year-old had trouble getting into a PG-13 movie a few weeks ago. Now she had to march into a Quick Mart and ask for a pack of cigarettes.

"Do they make Camel Lights in hard pack?" she wondered aloud.

Her partner, 16-year-old Rachel Alejandro gave her a stern warning: "Don't mess up."

Ory was more convincing inside the store but still failed in her mission because a store clerk asked for identification and refused to sell to a minor. But many other undercover teenagers who trooped into stores for a smoking survey Thursday were successful.

Clerks in about 17 percent of the 177 convenience stores, gas stations and supermarkets surveyed agreed to make a sale, according to preliminary survey results released by the Stanislaus County Health Services Agency on Friday. That's up from 12 percent in 1999.

None of the stores will be penalized, but officials said they are disappointed to see the trend moving in the wrong direction.

Officials said they plan to ask police departments and the county Sheriff's Department to step up occasional sting operations and cite stores that sell tobacco to minors. Store owners can be fined up to $300 for their first offense and up to $6,000 for five or more sales within five years.

The state cited 13 stores in Stanislaus County between January 1999 and March.

"We don't want to just let it alone and pretend that it's not going to go up," said Heather Greunig Duvall, program director for the agency's Tobacco Education Program. She said health educators also will visit the stores to make sure clerks know the law.

The 35 teen-agers who took part in the survey got free pizza and $5 movie passes, and health officials got to find out that they need to do more to educate retailers about the law.

Retail clerks are required to ask for identification from anyone who appears younger than 27, and stores must post signs that say it's illegal to sell cigarettes to minors.

Customers also can report retailers who sell tobacco to minors by calling state health officials at (800) 5-ASK-4-ID.

Reprinted by permission of Modesto Bee.