Landlords whose tenants are repeatedly caught selling illegal tobacco could themselves face jail time, as part of a crackdown on the illicit trade in South Australia that would also boost financial and other penalties.
Under the proposed amendments to cigarette and retail laws, illicit tobacco dealers could be jailed for up to 17 years and anyone caught in possession of large commercial quantities of the products fined up to $21 million.
Consumer authorities would also be given the power to impose extended closure orders of 130 days on businesses — a new medium-term category between the current 28-day option and the 12-month closure imposed by the courts.
The SA government said the amendments would be tabled in parliament this week.
It said the changes would allow landlords who were convicted for a second time of "knowingly causing or permitting their premises to be used for illicit conduct" to be jailed for a year.
"There's been a gap in the law when it comes to powers and obligations on landlords in particular,"
Police Minister Michael Brown said.
"One of things that landlords have told us is that they felt that our closure orders in South Australia weren't for a long enough period and also that they weren't empowered enough to be able to cancel leases of those people running illegal tobacco stores.
"But with power comes responsibility, and we're also putting obligations on landlords to make sure that those landlords who turn a blind eye to people operating illegal tobacco stores, or those landlords who are actually involved in the tobacco trade, will face harsh penalties themselves."
Police Minister Michael Brown says landlords will be given greater powers as well as face tougher penalties. (ABC News: Daniel Taylor)
Mr Brown said the laws would enable South Australia to "lead the pack" when it came to illicit tobacco.
Other measures include banning ATMs from retailers found selling tobacco products without the proper licence — a step the government said acknowledged the prevalence of cash transactions around illegal tobacco.
The government said the proposed $21 million fines were up from $6.6 million.
Expiations for supply and possession will be increased from $20,000 to $175,000, the government said.
'Difference between legislation and enforcement'
Former federal police officer and founder of the Tobacco Strike Team, Rohan Pike, said the new legislation was partly an acknowledgement that previous measures had failed to curb the illegal trade.
"It seems that they're locked in a bit of an arms-legislation race with the other states, trying to claim that they've got the toughest legislation in Australia," he said.
"Two years down the track, it's now proven that those settings were not sufficient to deter the trade and they've realised they need to upscale both the legislation and the enforcement levels."
Asked whether he felt the new 130-day closure order would make a difference, Mr Pike said he did not believe it would.
"There's a difference between harsh legislation and harsh enforcement. It's not certain that South Australia has sufficient resources to enact these proposals," he said.
"[There's] a 21-year penalty for selling cigarettes — I can't see how that is ever going to be enforced. You hardly get that for murder these days."
Asked whether a more effective measure would be reducing the excise on legal tobacco, the SA government said that was a matter for the Commonwealth — but said such a step had the potential to drive up the prevalence of smoking.
"We've got to be very careful with this kind of conversation,"
Health Minister Blair Boyer said.
A previous haul of illegal tobacco products displayed at a media conference in June. (ABC News)
Cancer Council SA senior manager of prevention Christine Morris agreed, saying cheaper cigarettes could "increase smoking rates".
"We don't want to unwind our great moves forward," she said.
"We're very, very keen as public health people to not let excise or tobacco-control policy be driven by both … organised crime or the tobacco industry."
SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens previously raised the idea of penalising people who were caught buying illegal cigarettes, saying it was a suggestion that needed "to be considered".
But the government today ruled that out, with Mr Brown saying that "the government's not considering introducing that at this time".
"We don't feel that fining smokers is justified at this stage,"
he said.
Opposition leader Ashton Hurn said her party would have a "closer look at the detail" when the amendments went before parliament, but expressed support for a crackdown.
"We've been calling on the government to have much tougher laws because there's no use giving these illegal shops a bit of a slap on the wrist only for them to open again in 28 days' time," she said.
"We have long been calling for an extended period of closure."