San Anselmo could be the latest Marin municipality to tighten its tobacco laws, including banning the sale of flavored tobacco products.
The San Anselmo Town Council this week reached a 3-1 consensus directing staff to draft an ordinance that would ban the sale of flavored tobacco products. The ordinance would include prohibitions on the sale of flavored vape or electronic-cigarette devices and liquid cartridges and require shops to obtain a tobacco retail license in order to sell any tobacco product.
There was no official vote at the Tuesday meeting to adopt any new rules yet. Councilman Ford Greene was absent.
Mayor Matt Brown, who dissented, said he understands that his position is unpopular.
“I am absolutely in support of keeping youth away from tobacco products until they reach the age of majority,” Brown said at the meeting. “Once they are legal, I do not want to interfere with their exercise of free will, and what this ordinance does is prohibits adults from exercising their free will.”
When contacted Friday, Brown, who is not a smoker or a user of tobacco products, said, “We’ve addressed the smoking issue already by prohibiting smoking in many, many locations,” pointing out that the town has already banned smoking in multifamily complexes, such as apartment buildings, to protect nonsmokers and youth from the effects of secondhand smoke.
“But there are so many things that we as human beings consume that are not only not good for you but actually detrimental for your health,” Brown said. “Where do the regulations end?”
His colleagues on the council have a different view.
“The vaping is just absolutely exploding in high schools and it’s a really, really significant public health concern right now,” Councilman John Wright said. “I think (the proposed ban is) a fairly light touch from a licensing perspective and merchants that are doing the right thing, it’s not much of a burden for them.”
Councilwoman Kay Coleman said, “I think it’s just a very small drop in the bucket, but it states that we are in support of health.”
The discussion comes weeks after the American Lung Association released its 2019 state of tobacco control report, which grades all 482 cities and 58 counties in California on tobacco-related policies.
This year, Ross, Tiburon and Sausalito joined the A-list of smoke-free communities in Marin. Belvedere, Fairfax, Mill Valley, Novato, San Rafael and unincorporated Marin were already on the list, while San Anselmo earned a B, and Larkspur and Corte Madera earned a C, the same as last year.
Under the tobacco retail licensing program, the county tobacco-related disease program collaborates with the Marin County Sheriff’s Office to conduct randomized compliance checks to make sure tobacco retailers are not selling to minors.
If they break the rules, the city or town has authority to revoke their licenses. Out of more than 200 compliance checks in 2018, 3.5 percent failed, said Bob Curry, the head of the county tobacco-related disease program. That’s down from the 6-percent failure rate in 2017.
David Bonfilio is a commissioner on the First 5 Marin board and a volunteer at the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network. He is encouraging the council to adopt the new law, saying that marketing campaigns for menthol cigarettes target minority groups.
As for the licensing program, he said, “These licenses are a proven way to stop kids from picking up the habit.”
The staff report is available at bit.ly/2Gr3Hwl.
