Edhat Staff
(stock photo)
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors have approved a ban on flavored tobacco in unincorporated areas.
Four supervisors approved the ban with Peter Adam of the Fourth District dissenting.
The amended ordinance to Licensure to Tobacco Retailers includes requirements to prevent youth exposure to tobacco, including electronic smoking devices, also known as vaping, and flavored tobacco products. It also prohibits mail-order deliveries, coupons for discounted tobacco, and small pack sales.
The legal smoking age to buy tobacco is 21 years in the State of California.
Final approval of the ordinance is scheduled for December 17 and could take effect within 90 days if approved.
County Supervisors Consider Flavored Tobacco Ban
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors are meeting Tuesday to discuss a ban on flavored tobacco.
The ban will only be effective in the unincorporated areas of the county.
The proposed ordinance or County Code Chapter 37A – Licensure to Tobacco Retailers will include language that provides strengthened public health requirements for tobacco retailers in an effort to prevent youth exposure to tobacco, including electronic smoking devices and flavored tobacco products.
“The amendment provides a multi-pronged approach to address underage nicotine use and regulate businesses to prevent youth access to nicotine and tobacco products. The amendment includes language to prohibit the sale of flavored tobacco products, prohibit small and inexpensive pack sizes, prohibit coupons that allow a consumer to purchase a tobacco product for less than the full retail price, prohibit the sale of any tobacco product to a consumer through a multiple-package discount or otherwise provide any such product to a consumer for less than the full retail price. This item will prohibit the mail-order, home delivery of tobacco products to consumers,” according to the county’s website.
The City of Santa Maria has already approved a similar ban.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports 42 people have died from complications with vaping prompting many local governments to take action.
ZEROHAWK. You are “seriously” behind the times. Back in your Grandad’s day population was a heck of a lot less. We weren’t crammed in together, a constant crowd. Why do you think smoking is banned? It’s to keep our lungs a bit clearer and to keep the air cleaner. Any smoke is bad smoke, flavored or otherwise.
SANTABARBARAOBSERVER. Such an immature rant.
SB Observer. Very funny and sadly so true.
“The ban will on be effective in unincorporated areas of the county” Lmao so not only can people just drive a few miles to SB and get it but the geniuses at the SB Sheriff will be in charge of enforcement? I don’t vape and dislike it but what a total joke of a law.
Don’t be fooled people. Once the tax on tobacco passed here a few years back, the local tobacco shops took a hit. I know alot of people who buy their tobacco in bulk online for literally 1/4 of the price of what they charge in the local stores (these are people who roll their own). And ever since vaping hit the scene, they are suffering too as people turn to that versus regular smoking. The local tobacco shops are suffering and they have a part in this – especially the part about stopping online ordering for less than retail. I’m sick of these special interests – dig deeper and I bet the tobacco shops have a hand in this – no doubt. If this was truly about underage smoking/vaping, then they should be equally as concerned about the prolific underage drinking problem AND DEFINITELY the rampant use of Adderral and opiates in underage persons and they’ve done NOTHING to ban any of those so please already – don’t be fooled by what is really behind this.
if this is targeted to underage users, then why prohibit mail order to “consumers”, and mail order for less than retail? WHY! How does that have anything to do with use by those underage? It doesn’t is the answer. This law is a ruse – kids aren’t buying these things mail -order. It’s already been proven that the recent vaping illnesses were linked to black market products containing THC and vitamin E oil as a carrier – which solidifies in the lungs and blocks the airways.
I’m not sure how you can ban mail order products….
Every new regulation requires more county employees to enforce it. Of course the current crop of supervisors support the nanny state – telling people what they can and can not do as well as hiring more of their union buddies to enforce all these new regulations. No, this is not worthy of consideration. If people want to make stupid consumer choices, let them. PSA’s are good enough.
1:53, which store do you work for? All of these measures are necessary to prevent kids from getting hooked on nicotine, which is reportedly more addictive than cocaine. They are not trying to prevent kids from dying, they are trying to prevent lifelong addictions to nicotine, whether through vaping or smoking. But preventing the serious lung diseases is an added plus.
Til the City wakes up in and implements their own ban.
Yes, but please continue to purchase legal cannabis because we like the tax money.
Sincerely,
Your Elected Officials
Forget nicotine, when are we going to worry about being addicted to hamburgers and pizza?!
Parvopup – there’s a huge difference between flavored tobacco products and cannabis, legal or not. Tobacco can kill you, cannabis cannot.
I don’t use this stuff, but really don’t think some city employee should have a right to tell us what we can and can’t inhale/smoke/enjoy.
My great grandfather smoked a pipe, with flavored tobacco. There are cigar shops in town. This is serious over reach.
Dear Supervisors;
While you are considering things, please include a ban on:
Loitering, vagrancy, encampments in the bushes, open drug use, using sidewalks as toilets, midnight prowling by meth addicts on bikes, cars & motorcycles racing on Cabrillo,
reckless driving on 154, baby gang-bangers, litter-bug-animal chasing-cig butt tossing tourists, & dogs crapping everywhere?.
Thanx.
But Zerohawk, they are our Overlords. They were not elected into their rolls to manage the business of the county. They are there to make sure we dont suffocate on a plastic bag or go into a park after dark… We really do need these middle managers to manage our lives otherwise we’d all just lose it. Thank goodness they are so smart, experienced and ever so successful at their core duties. It gives them all this free time to make sure we dont have vaping juice sold next to the huffing gas, the candy flavored vodka and the cherry cigarillos…
Sacjon, you cannot prove that cannabis never killed anyone. So that is hyperbole. Just as I cannot prove that cannabis is deadly to everyone. But I would assert that cannabis usage is linked to death in many ways. Maybe my friend’s cancer. Maybe the guy that was high that drove into a tree. Maybe the people that got addicted to THC and then moved on to stronger drugs and overdosed. Making addictive substances available to lots of people and especially youth is never a good idea.
PITMIX – If you think it is “hyperbole” that THC/cannabis has never killed anyone, then I’m not sure I can help you here. Sure, someone got stoned and hit a tree, and someone else got lung cancer from smoking foreign substances, or the lady in Louisiana died from vaping (caused by additives, not THC)…but my point is that THC (the active chemical in cannabis) has NEVER killed anyone on its own. You cannot die/overdose from THC. It has never happened. Please educate yourself.
Sacjon, using words like cannot and NEVER are not your friends. You can die from THC. But the amount that would kill you is so large that probably no one ever has died from an overdose so you are right about that. The median lethal dose according to Stoner on Westworld is 666 mg/kg, or about 53 grams of THC for a 175 lb person. Wonder how much that would cost at our local Mission St dispensary?
More virtue-signaling nonsense from politicians. How quaint.
“ to prevent youth access to nicotine and tobacco products.”
It is illegal to sell to minors. Regardless of flavor, it’s already illegal!
That’s not enough? Put bar codes on the vape pens and trace them to the POS (point of sale), take them from minors and fine the store that sold them to the consumer.
Punish the stores that sell or allow these products to get into the hands of kids.
While we’re looking out for children’s health and safety, let’s go all out and ban sugar like NYC, ban big gulps, supersize sodas, yoplait yogurts, candy, etc…
Make it illegal to sell sugar, candy and sodas to minors. It causes diabetes, obesity, and other health problems.
Just because the symptoms don’t immediately appear doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous to health.
Sacjon, I know a long-time pot smoker that now has lung cancer. Never smoked cigarettes. Studies show that marijuana smoke has many of the same harmful substances as tobacco, and often more of them. Among the hazards are:
Benzo(a)pyrene
Benz(a)anthracene
Phenols
Vinyl chlorides
Nitrosamines
Reactive oxygen species
When scientists looked at lung tissue of some people who smoked weed regularly, they found changes that are known to signal the future growth of cancer. Maybe you are talking about tinctures and thc candy?
This will have little to no effect on actually getting children to not use vaping products.
@ 751, i’m just behind your time. not the worlds. LOL you really think that just 50 years ago, we were so less that there was no traffic and crowds? fairytale land yo….
Pipe tobacco is still sold and used. Flavored. So are cigars.
I don’t smoke at all, but i sure as hell don’t need some elected ass hat telling me i can’t. that’s my own decision.
@751 again, how is SBobserver ranting? they speak the truth.
i gotta feeling you’re a millennial. …..lol
And I know a long time tobacco user that has never had lung cancer or anything else. What does this anecdotal stuff tell us? We are foolish to even consider such testimony.
Radon gas is the #2 cause of lung cancer. Radon gas is present in a sizable number of homes and buildings in Santa Barbara. But let’s not let facts get in the way of our opinions…
Kids are dying from these vaping devices. Sure, they told us almost 60 years ago tobacco could cause lung cancer and heart problems. So, any of us smoking knew the risks, sort of like playing Russian roulette. But it didn’t happen as fast as these vaping children are getting sick, and dying. I know a drug and alcohol counselor who said people told him it’s harder to quit smoking than quitting heroin. Sure, kids can get the mail order ones, they don’t check IDs. Anything to prevent children getting addicted and dying is a good thing.
PITMIX – there are many causes of lung cancer, not just smoking. I’m talking about ALL THC products. Cannabis has never, not once, not ever, killed anyone. Even if the lung cancer is from smoking, it is from inhaling burned material, not necessarily caused by cannabis and/or THC.
FLICKA – to draw a parallel, it is like taking regulated alcohol off the shelves because people are being killed by homemade alcohol.
1:12, more accurately, it’s like taking alcohol with strawberry flavors in containers decorated by unicorns and snowboard heroes out of the stores because people are being killed by homemade alcohol. But you are still ignoring all of the legal products containing nicotine that are addicting our kids who think vaping is cool. There still will be enough time to get addicted and ruin their lives when they are 21.
Ban this, ban that. Officious, overbearing, finger-wagging scolds telling others how to live their lives. Bunch of intermeddling Gladys Kravitz busybodies.
But the yutes can be exposed to pot. Rich. So, does this mean that no one can mail order tobacco at much cheaper rates anymore, once it takes effect? Or does this just apply to vaping? I need to go stock up on my mint flavored juice now and order a few bags of decently priced tobacco since they think they can ban grown adults from doing that. I will also be consulting with an attorney to see if this is even legal (constitutionally).
Good on ’em, it’s only outlaws and ruffians what lives in unincorporated areas. Maybe death penalty for postal workers making deliveries of illicit substances out there.
PITMIX I don’t work at any “store”, assuming you are referring to a vape store. I do however purchase mail order products and it’s ridiculous that now I can’t. Parents need to watch their kids – where do you think they get the money from? Please – parental failure is what causes these things, and banning adults from choices like cheaper mail order is completely illegal.
“virtue signal” is a term that sociopathic right wingers use to signal to other sociopathic right wingers that they’re on the team.
Flicka, wheres the proof aside of online media hype paid for by lobbyists?
this is just government over reach
ZEROHAWK, The number of deaths, and those getting really sick, are updated on the TV news. You think it’s all a scam? I doubt it.
PITMIX – no one has EVER died from THC. Fact. Ok, maybe you “can” but no one EVER has.
More complaining from you. How predictable.
Zero, if everything we see is just online media hype paid for by lobbyists, wouldn’t your comment be the ultimate in fake news? If you can’t trust anything, that means we definitely can’t take anything you say as the truth. I don’t see how your nihilistic approach solves anything.
So you think this strategy will be ineffective, which means we shouldn’t try it? Sometimes when you see bad things happening, you have to try something. What is your solution to providing addictive nicotine products to kids?
Pit – No, you said “Sacjon, you cannot prove that cannabis never killed anyone. ” Now you’re saying no one has ever died from THC. Which is it?
Its not a scam, its just NOT the same thing. please the CDC even released a statement saying it was “bootleg THC cartridges containing Vitamin E acetate”. The flavor ban, the addiction issue, the underage getting a hold of them issue are all completely different topics and discussions.
its like eating a cheeseburger, your friend cooked but he calls it a “big mac”. he prepares it horribly, and dangerously under cooked. you get salmonella you die. do you sue Mc Donalds? Burger King? remove burgers from menus because they are dangerous? outlaw burger patties because they are an unknown un controllable substance that no one can manage.