After the Denver City Council voted to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products within the city this past December, a flavored tobacco ban is set to go into effect on March 18, but opponents of the ban have launched a crusade to overturn it.
The ban is set to prohibit flavored tobacco products, including flavored vape, chews, pouches and menthol cigarettes.
In mid-January, a number of vape shop owners, including Phil Guerin, president of the Rocky Mountain Smoke-Free Alliance Board of Directors and owner of Myxed Up vape stores, filed a petition for a referendum with the city’s Clerk and Recorder’s Office, seeking to introduce a ballot initiative to remove “amendments to the city municipal code that prohibit retail tobacco stores from selling flavored tobacco products,” according to a report by the Denver Gazette.
In order to succeed in placing the initiative on the November ballot, the petition will need nearly 9,500 valid signatures from registered Denver voters by March 19, 2025, the Denver Gazette reported.
Flavor Bans Accelerate
Flavored tobacco bans are continuing to build momentum around the country at both the local and state levels.
A report by Truth Initiative noted that as of Dec. 31, 2024, about 27.52% of the U.S. population was living in a jurisdiction with a flavored tobacco sales restriction in effect. By the end of 2024, 412 U.S. jurisdictions had some type of restriction on flavored tobacco product sales in place. Some 13 states (up from eight in March) had at least one jurisdiction with a flavored tobacco sales restriction in place at the end of 2024. Those states included California (153), Colorado (7), Georgia (1), Illinois (5), Maine (9), Maryland (2), Massachusetts (181), Minnesota (30), New Jersey (5), New York (5), North Dakota (3), Ohio (6) and Rhode Island (4), Truth Initiative reported.
Seven states have some form of statewide flavored tobacco restriction. Massachusetts was the first state to restrict the sale of all flavored tobacco products. California also restricts the sale of most flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, but allows flavors in loose leaf tobacco, hookah and premium cigars. New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Maryland have various restrictions on the sale of flavored e-cigarettes. Maine bans the sale of all flavored cigars except for premium cigars.
Utah had been set to join that list on Jan. 1, when its ban on flavored e-cigarettes except for menthol was set to go into effect, but in December a district judge granted a temporary restraining order that delayed the ban. Now, newly proposed legislation, HB432, seeks to repeal the ban on flavored vapor products in Utah, The National Association of Tobacco Outlets (NATO) reported.
Hawaii is another story. “In Hawaii, the city and county of Honolulu passed an ordinance banning the sale of all flavored tobacco products in 2023, however the ordinance is not enforceable because the state of Hawaii still allows the sale of flavored tobacco products,” explained Tom Bachrodt, general manager, Russell’s Convenience, which operates eight stores in Colorado, Michigan, California and Hawaii. “The current state law prohibits counties from passing ordinances regulating tobacco that are stricter than current state laws. There is a bill in the state legislature now that will ban the sale of all flavored tobacco products, if passed, the law will take affect Jan. 1. 2026.”
At press time, HB1203 in Washington State was in House committee, and seeks to ban the sale of flavored tobacco and nicotine products, and HB6481 had been introduced in Connecticut, seeking to prohibit the use of flavored tobacco products.
