The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will be holding a meeting on October 2 at 9:30am to discuss directing the county staff to write a comprehensive tobacco control ordinance that includes a flavor ban component.
Not much to update on regarding the Santa Cruz meeting with retailers. Thanks to those who made it out there! Staff did not receive much direction on what or how to craft the ordinance (which can be good in a lot of cases since it means they are still open to additional input beyond today's short session. There's also no known timeline on when they would be done with it or even introduce it.
Redondo Beach Recap: City likely looking at directing staff to come up with a tobacco retail license (TRL) scheme but did not go into any details on parts of the not clearly defined desires for one. Redondo Beach goes back on the monitoring list to get our eyes on their proposed TRL language and our ears to the ground before it gets out of hand.
The retailer meeting between city staff and the tobacco and vapor retailers has just ended. Excellent points were raised by everyone and while there was a level of chaos in a meeting it was good to see about 100 people attending it to voice their concerns. The ordinance is currently drafted and will be proposed by the city as staff will be directed to finalize it on OCTOBER 23RD.
We need constituents to light up the phone lines and express their concerns about having to go outside of the city to purchase the very products that keep you from smoking. If possible we suggest you start making these calls starting tomorrow, Tuesday the 18th, as it will coincide with a meeting with retailers that will be going on.
Those of you who follow our regular updates on the flavor ban policies being introduced across the State of California will likely have noticed things are getting rather busy. Instead of putting out a CTA specific to the following areas we've decided to combine them into a single post.
On September 18th at 6PM the city council of Redondo Beach California will be discussing tobacco control plans such as limiting use in public places, options for retail tobacco control policies, multi-unit housing restrictions and tobacco retail licenses. There is no mention of a possible flavor ban component. However, these types of meetings often lead to it.
Vape shops, e-liquid manufacturers and all tobacco retail license (TRL) holders in Sacramento should attend a meeting with city officials that will be held on September 18th from 5:00pm to 7:00pm at the address listed below. The city will be presenting the proposed amendments to the licensing scheme, including the prohibition on the sales of flavored tobacco products, and are open to input from the affected businesses.
On the same day we were able to deal with the flavor ban in Oakley, but earlier in the morning, the Marin County flavor ban hearing got postponed until a later date. A date that hasn't been set yet. Watch this space because it won't be going away but it will likely incorporate several exemptions or grandfathering clauses for existing businesses to continue doing business as usual.
No flavor ban in Oakley. While I never allow myself to call anything a "win" since most wins are always of a temporary nature anyway, I think we can safely say that a flavor ban will not be part of the consideration in Oakley.
The City Council meeting in Albany CA has been moderately hopeful based on the concerns of several of the city council members who were not ready to move forward on a flavor ban policy. Mayor McQuaid and Council Member Nass wished to move forward and believe there is support in the city for a flavor ban ordinance but the rest of the city council wasn't so eager.
We would like to urge you to submit written comments to the city council at the contact details below to express your concerns about prohibiting the sale of flavored vapor products in the city and strongly recommend you attend the next meeting on September 10th at 9:00am.
