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NORTH ATTLEBORO - A teenager just shy of his 17th birthday and trying to buy cigarettes in a police sting was turned away at several stores until he finally bought a pack of Marlboros at a newly-owned convenience store downtown.

The youthful looking teen, wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, bought the $7 pack of cigarettes Friday morning from a clerk about the same age at the Town Market on North Washington Street.

It turns out the clerk was working his first day for his father, and just learned a tough lesson in business.

"I just invested $100,000 in this business, and I'm not going to risk it for a 50-cent profit on a pack of cigarettes," said owner Mahmoud Barq, who opened the store six months ago.

"I was busy. I'm usually around, but I was outside talking to a customer" when the youth came in to buy cigarettes, Barq said. Barq said his son just finished school at North Attleboro High School and started working "to keep him off the street in the summer."

"It's an honest mistake. It's like a car accident. Nobody intentionally gets in a car accident," Barq said.

Barq said he realizes the sale of cigarettes is against the law and he will have to deal with the consequences.

The police operative gave the clerk a marked $10 bill to pay for the cigarettes, which Detective Michael Elliott and Officer Scott Weiner, working in plainclothes, retrieved after the teen handed over the Marlboros. The cigarettes were taken as evidence.

Selling cigarettes to a person under 18 is punishable by a $100 fine.

Barq's son will be summonsed to court and police will forward a report about the sting to the town board of health for possible action against the business.

The teenager working with the police officers was patted down and checked before walking into gas stations and convenience stores, said Elliott, who watched the sale from a vantage point across the street.

At other stores checked by police - police tested 25 establishments - the situation was different.

Inside the Sunoco gas station at Route 152 and Plain Street, the boy went inside and struck out.

"Can I have a pack of Marlboros," the boy asked a woman in her 20s working behind the register. "Got an ID," she replied.

"No," the boy said before walking out.

Smoking by teens has come to the forefront since President Barack Obama has confessed to his own battle with smoking which he began at a young age.

Police Capt. Daniel Coyle said police conducted the sting operation because they have received complaints about businesses selling cigarettes to minors.

"I think we are seeking more kids experimenting with cigarettes now at a younger age," said Coyle, the former DARE officer for the town. "We're seeing more kids getting addicted to cigarette smoking."

A recent study by the Center for Disease Control bares out Coyle's observation. After a sharp decline since the late 1990s, CDC data shows that the adolescent smoking rates are rising slightly.

Nearly one-quarter of high school students reported smoking cigarettes in the last month, according to the 2005 CDC study, compared with 22 percent in 2003.

Before declining in 1997, 36 percent of high school students surveyed said they had smoked in the last month.

The study also found:

About 3,900 teens under 18 start smoking each day.

Of the 3,900 teens that start smoking each day, 1,500 will become regular smokers.

Those who smoke often have secondary behavioral issues such as violence, drug or alcohol use and high-risk sexual behavior.