Boulder’s proposed flavored vape ban worries some retailers

BOULDER — Boulder City Council voted earlier this week to move forward with new restrictions on flavored e-cigarette products, creating a sense of unease among local tobacco and vape retailers.

The new regulations, which are set for a final vote next month, would ban the sale of all flavored vaping products — which have become increasingly popular among high school students —  and raise the legal age to purchase tobacco and e-cigarettes to 21 years old. The sale of menthol flavored vape liquids would be allowed to continue until the end of the year to allow retailers to sell off their existing inventories. 

Boulder vape product sellers worry these restrictions will severely curtail their businesses because a vast majority of their sales are for flavored products. 

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Ginger Tanner, owner of Boulder Vapor House, told City Council members recently that only about 8 percent of her sales are for tobacco-flavored products. The remaining 92 percent were flavors such as mint, menthol and fruit.

Smoker Friendly founder Terry Gallagher said that Boulder likes to tout itself as being business friendly. But, he said, “if all of the different restrictions in the ordinance are adopted, I can say without hesitation that the retail climate in Boulder would be very unfriendly.”

Should menthol products be banned “Smoker Friendly in Boulder would likely close,” Gallagher said.

Addressing members of the council, he added: “As elected officials, you represent not only the residents of Boulder but all the businesses as well.”

Brian Fojtik, a representative of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets, urged the governing body “to look at a compromise and recognize that it represents significant debate within the industry to be responsive to concerns that [council has] and parents have.”

That compromise could include the permanent exemption of menthol-flavored products in exchange for the industry’s support for increasing the legal smoking age to 21, he suggested. 

Councilman Bob Yates, who supported the temporary exemption of menthol products, said he was sympathetic to local business owners’ concerns.

“We do have a couple of businesses in town that sell nothing but vaping products, he said. “If we do a ban of all [flavored] vaping products immediately, we’re shutting down those businesses.”

Yates added: “We’re kind of bankrupting them. Maybe they shouldn’t have chosen to be in this business, but that’s their judgment call. We shouldn’t as a government come through and close a business on short notice that is selling a product that all of us might find reprehensible but is still technically legal.”

Councilwoman Cindy Carlisle pushed back on the notion, arguing that vape and tobacco businesses have accepted certain risks when deciding what kinds of products to sell.

“If the [federal government] came in and shut down all of the marijuana businesses, would we be obligated to bail them out?” she asked rhetorically. 

Citing the health concerns associated with smoking and vaping, Carlisle said, “I know lots of people in my family who have died of lung cancer, and I take this very seriously. The fact that it’s the youth who are being targeted here makes me take it doubly seriously. Stepping forward now is the thing to do — we don’t owe Big Tobacco a break here.”