Manhattan Beach About Town
Anti-vaping emergency
ordinance is approved
The City Council on Tuesday night passed an emergency ordinance immediately banning the sale of vaping products and flavored tobacco citywide. The Council last month moved to ban the sale of all tobacco products, but that ban will not go into effect until a date yet to be determined, likely a few years out in order to give stores an opportunity to adjust.
The vaping ban was intended to quickly act against what local public health experts and education officials are calling an epidemic, with one in three students at Mira Costa High School using vaping products, according to a Beach Cities Health District survey.
“The point is vaping products are very addictive and it is causing a lot of trouble for our kids,” said Mayor Nancy Hersman.
The four stores in the city which sell vaping products will have the opportunity to file a hardship exemption in the next ten days. One of the stories, the MB Smoke Shop, said that $57,000 in existing inventory was comprised of vaping products and flavored tobacco. Store owners objected to the urgency ordinance, which they argued was an overreach of governmental control.
“I am sympathetic to small business owners, but our responsibility is citywide,” said Councilperson Richard Montgomery. “And that is the pushback with us.”