9. League response on vaping banb.eklund
From: Emukah, Emmanuel <eemukah@lmc.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 5, 2020 3:13 PM
To: b.eklund
Subject: RE: E -cigarette and vaping ban
Good Day Brenda,
I apologize it has taken this long to get back to you regarding the question you asked, however, below is my response to
your question.
Q: The Scandia City Council would like to ban/prohibit the sales of e -cigarettes and vaping products. I have discovered
that St. Louis Park recently amended their tobacco ordinance to ban the sales of these products. Does the League offer
any memo or sample ordinance that could assist Scandia's efforts to do the same? Thank you.
R: I discussed this issue with attorneys from Mitchell Hamline Public health law center, and here are some insights that I
can provide to you.
Looking at the St. Louis park ordinance, it looks like they are prohibiting the sale of products not approved by the FDA
(mirroring the San Francisco approach), and currently it seems there is only one product that has been approved by the
FDA. The flaw to this approach is that, someday the FDA start approving all these products and the ordinance would
likely not be that effective anymore, also they will need an employee who will have to monitor the FDA approvals, this
might end up being a full time position of some sort. Therefore, according to the Health law center, it is probably not the
strongest approach.
They recommend a few options available depending on the city's goals and intent.
1. The city can just ban all tobacco products- this has been done by Beverly hills
httn://www. bev,erlvh i I Is. o re/citvma nace r/smo ki nei nfo rmat io n/info rm ationfo rbus i nesses/
2. Ban flavored e -cigarettes, if the city does not want to ban all tobacco products.
3. Ban all flavored products, since vast majority of e -cigarettes are flavored. This will prevent people from having
other options to use flavored products.
Apparently, there is no preemption issues in Minnesota, thus, it is likely the city can come up with a good public health
rational to carry out this ban, especially should the ordinance be challenged.
Should you need further guidance, I would recommend you contact the Mitchell Hamline Public Health law center. The
contact person is Rachel Callanan, Desk: 651-695-7667 1 Cell: 612-803-1008, Email-
Rachel.Callanan@mitchellhamline.edu
Hope you find this information useful, please let me know if you have further questions.
Regards,
C. Emmanuel Emukah, Esq. LLB/LLM Business Lawl Research Assistant
Phone: (651) 281-12261 Mobile: (651)-356-5313 1 eemukahP-Imc.orq
League of Minnesota Cities 1 145 University Ave. West I St. Paul, MN 55103
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