Flavored tobacco ban eyed

The council will discuss the issue and potential regulations at its next meeting on Sept. 25.

Belmont already has some of the strictest regulations on smoking in the county. In 2007, the city banned smoking in apartments, townhomes and condominiums, regardless of ownership. The law also prohibits outdoor smoking at businesses and requires smokers to remain 20 feet from all business doors.

Belmont officials are looking to crack down on flavored tobacco shortly after the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors banned the sale of those products in the unincorporated areas of the county.

That ban, which took effect in July, is expected to affect some 47 stores and it also applies to retailers at the San Francisco International Airport.

Store owners have objected to flavored tobacco bans because they argue such rules are ineffective in limiting underage vaping and unfairly burden underprivileged communities.  

“Low-income and working-class immigrant communities will be displaced from their current sector of work,” said Miriam Zouzounis, board member of the Arab American Grocers Association whose family owns a corner store in San Francisco. “There’s a workforce attached to [these products] and you can’t just ban a sector of the economy without retraining or transitioning the workforce and that’s where legislators miss out. ... We have tobacco licenses that we transfer through generations — it’s like our 401(k) — and that’s how we stay in this country.”

Zouzounis noted that it’s already illegal to sell tobacco to anyone under the age of 21 in California, and that stores in San Francisco, where she works, see “non-stop” sting operations. She also said there are websites that offer home deliveries of flavored tobacco products without checking IDs.

Zouzounis said elected officials should at least talk to merchants and understand how their business model works before considering a ban.  

“We need an economic analysis and that’s not happening,” she said.