Report to Mayor and City Council
Tuesday, April 07, 2020
Discussion
SUBJECT:
Title
CONSIDERATION OF A RESOLUTION NO. 20-066 TEMPORARILY POSTPONING THE ENFORCEMENT OF ORDINANCE NO. 19-1940 AGAINST EXISTING TOBACCO AND ELECTRONIC CIGARETTE PERMITTEES (CITY COUNCIL)
Body
I. SUMMARY
On January 14, 2020, the City Council unanimously adopted Ordinance No. 19-1940 (Exhibit 2), an ordinance prohibiting, city-wide, (1) the sale of electronic cigarettes and other vaping devices approved by the FDA for introduction into interstate commerce, and (2) the retail sale of flavored tobacco products, including menthol and flavored hookah products. The ordinance became effective on February 13, 2020.
Around the Ordinance's effective date and during the February 18, 2020 City Council meeting, the City received significant public input and public comments from City-permitted tobacco retail business owners stating they are facing economic hardship complying with the Ordinance No. 19-1940, in that they have significant existing inventories of prohibited products with no time to sell them off and thereby recoup their investment. Based on this input, during its February 18, 2020 meeting, the Council indicated it would like to consider a resolution providing such permitted business owners with additional time to exhaust existing inventory and come into compliance with the ordinance.
The proposed resolution (Exhibit 1) would grant existing City tobacco permittees a grace period until the end of the 2020 calendar year (a grace period of 323 days, or approximately 10.5 months) to sell off their existing inventories and come into compliance with Ordinance No. 19-1940. This proposed action is similar to actions taken by other local agencies such as the County of Los Angeles and the City of Long Beach, but is longer than the 180-day grace periods provided by those agencies by some 3.5 months as a response to the economic hardships caused to such permittees by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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