Efforts to regulate tobacco escalate in cities across Northeast Ohio

Cities in Northeast Ohio are taking big steps to regulate tobacco use through flavor bans, retail licenses and even capping the number of vape shops.

Advocates for the regulations say the ordinances are one step to help people quit smoking.

“What happens when you end the sale of favored products is smoking rates decline,” Cleveland Director of Public Health David Margolius said. “[In] survey data, time and time again, most people who smoke want to quit.”

According to the National Library of Medicine, 25.8% of 18-24 year olds have used e-cigarettes. Research has also shown that the availability of flavors increases use in young people.

New regulations in Kent

In Kent, City Council passed an ordinance Aug. 16 which limits the number of vape and tobacco retailers in the city. With 27 retailers currently, community members were concerned by easy availability, Health Commissioner Joan Seidel said.

“What we were hearing from community residents were their concerns and actually, in some cases, complaints that there’s too many,” Seidel said. “Of course, the more availability there is, the easier it is for people to stop in and buy products.”

Current licensed retailers can continue to operate, but the new ordinance caps the number of retailers at 20, so when a shop closes in the future, another shop will not be able to open in its place if the limit has been reached.

Jae Lerer, manager of Puff n’ Stuff in Kent, said he supports the move to limit the number of retailers.

“Anyone who’s lived in Kent for any number of time has just watched the amount of smoke shops and vape shops pop up everywhere in every available strip mall space,” he said. “There were just so many of them that it comes to a point where there’s no way you’re splitting the existing market between all these different locations.”

When it comes to other regulations such as flavor bans, which have yet to be enacted in Kent, Lerer was less supportive and said he’d rather regulators use their resources to better enforce existing regulations like ensuring retailers are only selling to customers over 21.

“I feel like they’ve been too lenient with a lot of places. A lot of these places make so much money on underage sales that a small fine is just a drop in the bucket,” he said. “We were told when they pushed through and did the tobacco ordinance that there would be enforcement and that these places would lose their tobacco license. That makes sense. That is great. Why hasn’t that happened yet?”

The health department enforces the law in several steps. After a retailer gets caught breaking the law multiple times, Seidel said she can revoke their license.

“We have a stepwise approach in place that if they are caught selling to minors, it wouldn’t happen immediately,” she said. “I believe that there’s three steps, and then I can pull their retail license, and they would not be able to sell any nicotine related product.”

The Kent ordinance which passed in August will also make it so vape or tobacco retailers cannot be within 1,000 ft of a “youth-oriented facility” such as a school or childcare center.

Proposed regulations in Cleveland

In Cleveland, health officials are working to pass an ordinance that would ban flavored tobacco products such as menthol and require licenses for tobacco retailers. The ordinance has been stalled by city council since its introduction in February.

The campaign for the legislation involves a number of groups in the Cleveland area, including the Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition. A flavor ban would be a step toward equity, said Executive Director Yvonka Hall.

“When we talk about racism as a public health crisis, this is a driver of that crisis that these communities have been targeted,” she said. “The fact that about 90% of African Americans [who smoke,] smoke mentholated products.”

Tobacco corporations targeted Black communities through marketing, she said.

“They invested in rap concerts, R&B concerts, gospel concerts, jazz concerts, The Newport News, the Kool Jazz Fest, giving out cigarettes within our communities,” she said, “using those things to target our community and disguising it as this feel-good-look-good thing that is cool to do.”

Even with the support of advocacy groups, Cleveland’s ordinance is still far from passage.

“We’re not giving up. We know this is too important. We recognize that city council isn’t all the way there yet, but that doesn’t mean know the effort is going to go away,” Margolius said. “As long as smoking is the No. 1 leading cause of death in Cleveland, it’s going to be our No. 1 issue that we have to act on to save lives.”

Statewide impacts

Before Ohio enacted a Tobacco 21 law statewide, which requires people to be 21 to be able to legally purchase tobacco products, several Ohio cities did it first, Kent and Cleveland included.

Margolius said he hopes that enough action from local governments on further tobacco regulations might push statewide action. In the meantime, local governments should continue local actions, he said.

“We can’t wait for the federal government to save lives, and we can start saving lives immediately,” he said. “That’s why local governments have to act.”

In January, Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed a Republican-backed bill to prohibit local governments from enacting flavor bans. Recently, state lawmakers indicated they are working on getting enough votes to override the governor’s veto and pass the legislation.

The uncertainty of what the legislature will do puts a burden on businesses, Lerer said.

“It’s really frustrating because the nature of the stores we’re in, we’re dealing with both tobacco stuff and cannabis stuff,” he said. “I don’t think there’s going to be an easy solution for it unfortunately.”