San Jose Update. On October 17th 2017 the city held a regular city council meeting where item 3.6 was the “Priority Setting Session”. It would take a long time to explain what that is since it’s sort of a multi-stage voting process for them to prioritize items for consideration so let’s just leave it at “they’re figuring out what awful things to add to their upcoming agendas”.
Dr. Philip Gardner was there to speak on the importance of the flavor ban, took the national strategy approach by focusing on menthol and minorities and how this is a “social justice issue”. Yeah, the children alone won’t cut it anymore so you have to tuck on social justice if you’re playing identity politics. He was followed by two speakers who spoke in support for an indoor multi-unit housing smoking/vaping ban. A few TC and PH folks were there speaking in favor for both these suggested ordinances as well. Impressively enough, there were far more speakers on the subject of banning gas powered leaf blowers, though.
Paul spoke against the new TRL citing the economic arguments and how 17 other items on the consideration list were likely a higher priority than dealing with a new TRL. APCA and a few others spoke against as well. It was nice to see in the deliberation and voting process on these priorities that at least one of the council members considered MJ use by minors a much bigger concern.
The new TLR and flavor ban only got ONE vote and is all the way down on the priority list. The smoke-free multi-unit ordinance got 5 votes, though.
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