Youngsters can buy cigarettes illegally twice as easily in Clallam and Jefferson counties as they can – on average – in the rest of the state.

Ten percent of “sting” operations – in which youth operatives enter stores and ask to buy brand-name tobacco products – resulted in illegal sales in both counties in 2006, according to state health officials.

Ninety percent of stores and their clerks complied with the law – asking for identification and refusing to sell to persons younger than 18 – said Clallam County Tobacco Prevention and Control officer Rachel Anderson on Monday.

“To have a 90 percent compliance rate is pretty exciting for our county,” she said.

According to Kellie Ragan, Anderson’s counterpart in Jefferson County, a similar 10 percent of stores failed the test.

In Jefferson County, that meant two stores out of 20 that were checked.

In Clallam, four businesses out of 38 sold tobacco illegally.

Both the clerks who sold tobacco to minors and the stores where they worked received citations.

Clerks faced fines of $50 for the first offense and $100 for each subsequent offense in a two-year period.

The stores faced penalties of $100 for a first offense, $300 for a second offense, $1,000 and a six-month suspension of their tobacco licenses for a third offense, and $1,500 fines and 12-month suspensions thereafter.

As for the rest of Washington, state health authorities said last week that 95 percent of businesses refused to sell tobacco to minors during 2006 – up from 88 percent in 1999.