San Francisco Restricts E-Cigarette Sales

Electronic cigarettes will come under the city’s current tobacco laws.

March 21, 2014

SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has approved regulations that place electronic cigarettes with all other tobacco products, thus restricting the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, the Huffington Post reports.

Supervisor Eric Mar introduced the measure that puts e-cigarettes under current tobacco laws. “The ordinance would allow smoking e-cigarettes in the same places that cigarettes are allowed; prohibit them where cigarettes are prohibited; prohibit the sale of e-cigarettes on City and County property and other places cigarettes can't be sold; and require a tobacco permit for the sale or furnishing of e-cigarettes,” said Mar.

NACS recently issued a statement of position that encourages convenience stores to treat electronic cigarettes as age restricted and subjecting them to the same age-verification procedures as those applicable to tobacco products. “Convenience stores are responsible retailers and conduct more face-to-face age-verification checks than anyone in the world,” said NACS President and CEO Henry Armour, in a press release. “Given the uncertain status of e-cigarettes, it just makes sense that convenience stores check IDs as part of the more than 4.5 million age-verification checks that we already conduct every day.”

San Francisco’s move comes after other major U.S. cities, such as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C., and five states passed similar restrictions. The San Francisco supervisors will vote a second time on the bill next week, and, if approved again, will send it to the mayor, who has indicated he will sign it. Then the ordinance would become law in April.

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