Santa Cruz smoke shops face sales ban on flavored tobacco

Smoke shops in Santa Cruz are reeling after the city council voted to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products within city limits.

It is a move the city says will protect children, but one smoke shop manager says it is effectively a death sentence for their business.

The stores have a little over a year to comply with the new law, which directly impacts all vaping and e-cigarette products in town.

“The ruling yesterday was extremely inappropriate, in my opinion,” said Caine McClelland, the owner of Santa Cruz Vapors.

McClelland’s shop is not within city limits, but he is concerned the new rules might spread.

“At the end of the day, we get people off of cigarettes for a living, that’s what we do. And we do that using flavored tobacco,” he said.

But the city says flavored tobacco is getting into the hands of children and teens. They are also concerned about vaping products being marketed to underage groups. In fact, experts say over two million middle and high school students nationwide have tried vaping.

McClelland agrees children should not be doing this, and he makes sure to check IDs. But he says an outright ban is not the solution.

“The way the flavor ban is going to affect vape shops in Santa Cruz essentially is much different than convenience stores,” he said. “Where (at) convenience stores, that’s just one of the many items of sale that they have. For a vape store, it means that small business needs to close down immediately.”

While the ban affects brick-and-mortar stores in Santa Cruz, the city attorney says it does nothing about online sales. And that is where McClelland says kids buy their products.

“They just go purchase a pre-paid credit card and then they log into a website, they click the button that says they’re 21 and they have that stuff delivered to their house,” said McClelland.

KION tried talking with smoke shops within the city, but none wanted to go on camera.

The ban will be enforced starting on Jan. 1, 2020.