Tonight, January 16th 2018, the City of Alameda CA finally, after two weeks in a row of not addressing the agenda item and having folks attending waste their time, decided to direct the city staff to start drafting an ordinance for a flavor ban. Needless to say this is typically modeled after the other cities (and the Changelab Solutions flavor ban model ordinance as one of the council members brought it up as a way to reduce the demand on staff time) and supported by the usual suspects who get paid to spend their time this way.
So they are going to be moving forward on it. Any Alameda constituents (consumers, because there’s no vape stores there!) willing to attend meetings to argue for vapor products with your council members should contact me ASAP so I can see what I can arrange. There won’t be much time to have any influence on the final language that goes into the ordinance that at some later time will be presented to the council for a first reading, a second reading, and likely passing it.
Mayor Trish Herrera Spencer may be a good target to engage with since she believes a ban may cause unintended consequences and wants to make data based decisions and wants to know where these minors are getting their flavored tobacco products and whether it really is from the retail stores or from family members or other means.
Keep in mind, these people think they are banning flavored combustible tobacco products and menthol cigarettes and often just don’t understand they are also de-facto banning safer alternatives that have saved lives and continue to save lives.
Thanks to the folks from the tobacco stores and c-stores who were there to speak out against this plan to draft a flavor ban ordinance. Especially Paul for mentioning how our opponents are being paid to be there to testify.
Are they banning all menthol products in Alameda?