Juul Escalates Fight Against E-cigarette Bans

Source from:  San Francisco Chronicle 07/18/2019

San Francisco vaping company Juul is looking to halt an e-cigarette crackdown that started in its hometown and is spreading to other Bay Area cities.

It’s backing a referendum to stop a just-passed Livermore law banning the sale of e-cigarettes 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 e-cigarettes. The company, the nation’s largest e-cigarette maker, has thus far funneled $1.5 million into the closely watched San Francisco effort.

In Livermore, officials modeled their e-cigarette 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 e-cigarettes until federal regulators review the products to ensure their safety. Officials in both cities say they want to stop kids from using e-cigarettes, 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 scheduled 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 e-cigarette ban next week.

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San Francisco’s e-cigarette ban is the 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 e-cigarettes. The company has recently taken steps to restrict youth access to its products, including halting the sale of fruit- and dessert-flavored nicotine pods in brick-and-mortar stores.

The Livermore referendum effort will need to collect the signatures of 10% 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 e-cigarettes 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% of voters instead of 5%) in just a fraction of the time (30 days compared with 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.”  Enditem