Flavored tobacco ban won’t help kids. It will only hurt local store owners like me

As I’m sure you have heard, the California State Assembly is considering legislation that would ban the sale of all flavored tobacco products – including mint, menthol and wintergreen.

To put this in perspective, this legislation would ban more products than the federal government currently does.

I believe such a ban would be an enormous undertaking for lawmakers for multiple reasons and the ramifications of such a ban have clearly not been deliberated enough. While this might be a bold assertion, I work closely enough with tobacco products as well as of-age tobacco users to foresee exactly what will happen if this legislation is implemented.

I have been a proud small business owner of 12 convenience stores in the greater Sacramento area for 30 years now. My stores sell the typical products you would expect to find in any one-stop-shop, including tobacco products. Like many small business owners within my community, I was shocked to hear that my legislators were considering a ban on all flavored tobacco products, primarily because of the economic impact this ban would have on small businesses, given the current economic downturn we are already struggling to survive in.

Convenience stores are the first line of defense when it comes to enforcing strict identification checks and preventing underage individuals from accessing and purchasing tobacco products. In fact, Sacramento has a 97% compliance rate for age-restricted sales at convenience stores compared to the statewide compliance rate of 95%.

The data shows that we are successful at enforcing the law, which is why I am grappling with this ban that will eliminate an entire product category within my stores. The revenue generated from these products make up a majority of the money I use to pay my employees and keep my lights on. Many other convenience stores are in a similar position and know that this ban will most likely result either in the laying off of employees or the closing of our business for good. The economic implications of hundreds of convenience stores closing will be felt in Sacramento.

Furthermore, prohibition is not a good long-term solution. Such measures are not guaranteed to prevent teenagers from illegally buying and using tobacco products. And they most certainly limit the choices of products available to adult users seeking an alternative to traditional tobacco. No matter how many tobacco products lawmakers prohibit, the black market will continue to exist and tobacco users, both of age and underage, will only be pushed more into this market in order to access unregulated products. Considering black market products are a leading suspect in the lung-injury epidemic of last year, flavor bans are more likely to exacerbate this crisis than to mitigate it.

Hence, another one of my apprehensions with this ban is that restricting access out of an abundance of caution does not protect public health — especially when dangerous variations of these products are sold on the black market. You would think that such a far-reaching ban would implement statutes around online sales as well, especially considering this is typically how the underage access products, but in fact this legislation does not apply to products sold online. A long-term solution to this epidemic would be to crack down on internet sales — not convenience stores and other retailers that comply and uphold the law.

While I understand that there is little room for error when it comes to selling tobacco products — especially when trying to lower youth vaping — I do not believe it is fair to punish the many for the mistakes of the few. My employees, customers and stores should not have to suffer because of the few, especially during a time when we are all hurting because of the financial strains that the coronavirus pandemic is putting on our community.

My hope is that the California State Legislature recognizes Senate Bill 793 for what it is — bad policy at a bad time.

This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 5:00 AM.