Two years after the Legislature passed a sweeping Youth Access Law banning most cigarette vending machines, Minneapolis is joining the many cities and counties tightening restrictions on selling cigarettes to minors.

A plan approved Wednesday by a City Council committee probably would extend the ban to machines in bars as well as those with remote-control locking devices -- regulation of which until recently had been the subject of an industry legal challenge. City officials also are proposing regulations that would prohibit all forms of "self-service merchandising," including store counter displays of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, except for tobacco products sold by the carton or by tobacco shops. The new regulations also would be accompanied by a raft of beefed up enforcement measures and stepped-up fines for merchants caught selling tobacco to youths.

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