Juul expands fight to halt vaping bans
Company wants to put ecigarettes on ballot
San Francisco vaping company Juul is looking to halt an ecigarette crackdown that started in its hometown and is spreading to other Bay Area cities.
It’s backing a referendum to stop a justpassed Livermore law banning the sale of ecigarettes from taking effect.
It’s also behind a ballot initiative in San Francisco that, if passed by voters in November, would overturn an ordinance city officials unanimously approved in June prohibiting the sale of ecigarettes. The company, the nation’s largest ecigarette maker, has thus far funneled $1.5 million into the closely watched San Francisco effort.
In Livermore, officials modeled their ecigarette legislation — which also establishes a permit system for tobacco retailers, bans the sale of flavored tobacco products, and bars the sale of any tobacco product within 1,000 feet of schools and parks — after San Francisco’s, and passed its version less than a month later. Both cities’ laws prohibit the sale of ecigarettes until federal regulators review the products to ensure their safety. Officials in both cities say they want to stop kids from using ecigarettes, which contain nicotine.
“The city of Livermore has rushed a similar ban into law with minimal public input or consideration,” Juul
spokesman Ted Kwong said in an email. “We are exploring all options, including a potential referendum to give the voters a say on this critical matter of public health, because there are ways to fight youth access of vapor products while recognizing that adult smokers should have access to alternatives.”
Livermore’s law is slated to take effect Aug. 8, though it will not be enforced until Jan. 1.
The East Bay city of Richmond plans to consider a similar ecigarette ban next week.
San Francisco’s ecigarette ban is first of its kind in a U.S. city. Juul says it would mean adult cigarette smokers couldn’t buy vaping products that help them smoke fewer traditional cigarettes, which contain more harmful combustible toxins than ecigarettes. The company has recently taken steps to restrict youth access to its products, including halting the sale of fruit and dessertflavored nicotine pods in brickandmortar stores.
The Livermore referendum effort will need to collect the signatures of 10 percent of voters, or roughly 5,300 people, to qualify for the ballot. The signatures must be submitted by Aug. 8 to the office of the Alameda County registrar of voters, which has 30 days to verify them.
If the referendum qualifies for the ballot, the city’s ecigarettes ordinance would be put on hold temporarily, until voters approve it or vote it down. That vote would happen in March or November of next year.
Referendums and ballot initiatives are both processes aimed at overriding local legislators’ decisions, but there are differences. What’s known as a veto referendum can prevent a law from taking effect, whereas a ballot initiative can repeal or amend a law that has already taken effect.
In most California cities, a referendum is harder to pull off than an initiative because it requires proponents to gather twice as many signatures (10 percent of voters instead of 5 percent) in just a fraction of the time (30 days compared to 180 days) to qualify for the ballot, said Jon Golinger, an adjunct professor of election law at Golden Gate University School of Law and a campaign strategist.
As a result, referendums are rarely attempted, except on issues of very high public interest or when a proponent has deep pockets, like the tobacco industry, Golinger said.
Tobacco giant Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris and maker of Marlboro cigarettes, has agreed to take a 35% ownership stake in Juul.
Livermore Vice Mayor Bob Carling said the attempted referendum is “very disappointing.” He said flavored tobacco products, including liquid nicotine, are “a deliberate attempt by Big Tobacco to hook kids on this stuff so they turn to cigarettes and other things later in life.”
“I find it very hard to believe that residents of Livermore would overturn (the legislation) if it goes to the ballot,” he said.
But many adult vapers, smoke shop owners and ecigarette manufacturers would be happy to be rid of ecigarette bans, saying the products should remain available for adults. Cyrus Malekzadeh of Apollo Ecigs, a Livermore company that manufactures and distributes ecigarettes and flavored nicotine, supports the referendum because it would allow voters to decide the issue.
“We’re not very excited about the recent ruling from the council,” he said. “When you’re preventing adults from making choices on their own, that’s the part that concerns me. We don’t want kids to use ecigs, 110%, but the issue comes down to adults using it as well.”