Lafayette Considers Ban On Flavored Tobacco Products

LAMORINDA, CA — City staff recommends that Lafayette ban all sales of flavored-tobacco products, and that a tobacco retailers' licensing program be adopted to provide a framework to enforce the ban.

Approval of an ordinance recommended by Lafayette city staff has been under City Council discussion since November.

In the proposed ordinance, a retailer could have its business license suspended for 12 months for a third offense of selling flavored tobacco products, according to a city staff report.

Regular non-flavored tobacco and products used to consume non-flavored tobacco are not covered in the proposed ordinance.

A city staff report says Lafayette is host to 13 tobacco retailers, including six gas stations, and all of them sell at least one kind of flavored-tobacco products. That compares to 33 such retailer in Walnut Creek, 21 in Pleasant Hill, seven in Orinda and six in Moraga.

Adding menthol and other flavors to tobacco - dozens of such flavors are available - helps blunt the "natural harshness and taste of tobacco," and helps make tobacco more palatable and more likely to be used as "starter" products for young people.

A study of 33 communities with strong tobacco retail licensing ordinances shows that youth tobacco sales rates went down in 32 of them.

Monday's Lafayette City Council meeting begins at 6:15 p.m. in the Lafayette Library & Learning Center's Don Tatzin Community Hall, 3491 Mt. Diablo Blvd.

— Bay City News