A trio of Denver Metropolis Council members are spearheading a proposal to ban the sale of all flavored tobacco merchandise in Denver, with a concentrate on blunting the enchantment of nicotine merchandise to younger individuals with growing brains.
The trouble comes three years after then-Mayor Michael Hancock vetoed an analogous ban, following months of debate and intense lobbying on either side of the problem, together with from tobacco trade pursuits. That measure was crafted by a special lineup of council members.
“We predict that is vital as a result of it’s a public well being problem impacting our neighborhood,” Councilman Darrell Watson mentioned merely on Monday after a committee listening to that previewed the proposal. He had helped lay out the specifics of the proposed ban, which — like its predecessor — would outlaw the sale of flavored vaporizer cartridges and a large swath of different flavored merchandise, together with menthol cigarettes.
Tobacco use is the No. 1 explanation for preventable and untimely demise in Colorado, Watson mentioned, citing 2023 reporting by Colorado Public Radio.
Watson’s co-sponsors are Councilwomen Shontel Lewis and Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez. Not one of the three served on the council in 2021 when Hancock vetoed the earlier invoice. The council later got here one vote wanting mustering the 9 essential to overturn the veto.
In contrast to his predecessor, Mayor Mike Johnston, who took workplace in mid-2023, has already dedicated to signing a flavored tobacco ban regulation if it makes it to his desk.
“It’s essential that we defend the well being of all Denverites, particularly our youth,” mayoral spokeswoman Jordan Fuja mentioned of Johnston’s place.
Monday’s assembly was solely a briefing. The ban has an extended method to go earlier than it could face a remaining council vote. The following step for the deliberate proposal — a listening to earlier than the council’s Security, Housing, Schooling and Homelessness committee — may come as quickly as subsequent week.
“Our purpose is to carry the trade that income from these merchandise accountable, not younger individuals who have been focused and would possibly have already got been addicted,” Watson informed his fellow council members.
If handed, laws would:
- Ban the sale of flavored tobacco merchandise, together with e-cigarettes, menthol cigarettes, flavored tobacco utilized in hookah pipes, flavored chewing tobacco and nicotine pouches.
- Replace metropolis code to broaden and make clear the definition of tobacco merchandise to incorporate all types of nicotine supply.
- Give attention to enforcement that targets retailers, holding tobacco sale license holders chargeable for violations slightly than particular person retailer clerks.
The enforcement regime the sponsors envision would begin with a warning after a primary violation. However after a second violation in a three-year interval, a retailer’s license could be suspended for as much as 30 days.
After a 3rd violation in three years, the license could be suspended for as much as 60 days. And a fourth violation throughout that interval may end in a suspension of as much as a yr, Gonzales-Gutierrez mentioned.
She mentioned that whereas the ban would take impact 90 days after the ordinance passes, enforcement wouldn’t start till Jan. 1, 2026.
When Hancock vetoed the earlier measure, he echoed issues from some opponents that it could hurt small companies within the metropolis that depend on the sale of flavored vaping merchandise. He additionally mentioned younger individuals would have the ability to acquire nicotine and vaping merchandise elsewhere if solely Denver acted; as an alternative, he supported the concept of a statewide ban.
On the time, the inclusion of a ban on menthol cigarettes cut up advocates within the metropolis’s Black neighborhood, since that flavored product lengthy has been marketed to Black prospects.
Monday’s briefing included an avalanche of details and research outcomes shared by supporters. Jodi Radke, the regional director of the Marketing campaign for Tobacco-Free Children, highlighted merchandise that enchantment to youngsters and different youth, together with vaporizers which are adorned to appear like cartoon characters or flavored like apple juice.
“Ninety-fine p.c of present grownup tobacco customers began earlier than the age of 21, and the typical age of initiation is between 12 and 14 years outdated,” Radke mentioned. “And over 80% of those that provoke at that age achieve this as a result of the product is flavored.”
Radke’s group is amongst greater than 50 well being organizations that Watson counts as supporters to date. He estimated he and his co-sponsors had performed 25 conferences to supply stakeholder enter.
Notably lacking from Monday’s listening to was testimony from the tobacco trade or different doubtless opponents of the ban. That’s doubtless nonetheless to come back.
Councilman Kevin Flynn, who voted in opposition to overturning Hancock’s veto in 2021, is poised to vote in opposition to this proposed ban, too. In his southwest Denver district, he mentioned, it could be simple for any individual to cross into one other jurisdiction and purchase flavored tobacco merchandise, rendering the town’s ban meaningless.
“I’m simply by means of telling … adults what they’ll purchase,” he mentioned. “If it’s a authorized product, they ought to have the ability to purchase it. I’m not going to inform them they’ll’t.”
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