Lafayette could become the next California city to put a ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products in hopes of curbing their use among young people.
The city council is expected to vote Monday night on a ban that would include menthol cigarettes as well candy and fruit flavored e-cigarettes. Regular non-flavored tobacco and products used to consume non-flavored tobacco are not covered in the proposed ordinance.
City staff, which have been working on the proposal since November, are recommending that Lafayette ban all sales of flavored tobacco products, and that a tobacco retailers’ licensing program be adopted to provide a framework to enforce the ban.
In the proposed ordinance, a retailer could have its business license suspended for 12 months for a third offense of selling flavored tobacco products. A city staff report says Lafayette has 13 tobacco retailers, including six gas stations, and all of them sell at least one kind of flavored tobacco products.
The proposed ordinance comes less than a year after San Francisco became the first city in the nation to pass a flavored tobacco and vape ban. The same week voters passed San Francisco’s ban, San Mateo’s Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a similar comprehensive ban.