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Ordinance Prohibiting the Sale of Flavored Tobacco Products <br />December 21, 2021 <br />Page 3 <br />2 <br />3 <br />5 <br />3 <br />the Surgeon General’s Advisory on E-Cigarette Use among Youth noted that e-cigarette <br />use increased 78 percent among high school students during the past year, and one in <br />five high school students and one in 20 middle school students currently use e-cigarettes. <br />To clarify, these substances are tobacco products. <br />U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Flavored Tobacco Products <br />On their website, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declares that the use of <br />flavorings in tobacco products raises important public health questions. For example, the <br />FDA is aware of scholarly and peer-reviewed research that asserts that flavorings in <br />tobacco products are particularly appealing to youth and young adults. Acknowledging <br />these findings, in 2009, the FDA banned cigarettes with characterizing flavors other than <br />menthol (which have been proven to appeal to youth and young adults). More recently, <br />in April 2021, the FDA announced plans to propose tobacco product standards to ban <br />menthol as a characterizing flavor in cigarettes, as well as to ban all flavors in cigars— <br />including menthol. <br />Currently, no flavors are banned from other tobacco products (those other than cigarettes <br />with characterizing flavors other than menthol), although scholarly and peer-reviewed <br />research suggests that flavors may make these products more enticing to youth and <br />young adults. The FDA asserts that flavored tobacco products are disproportionately <br />popular among youth—and that removing flavors from tobacco products will help protect <br />people from becoming addicted to them. <br />Ordinance Prohibiting the Sale of Flavored Tobacco Products <br />The proposed ordinance (Exhibits 1 and 2) amends Sec. 18-92 of Chapter 18, Article III <br />the Santa Ana Municipal Code to declare that it shall be unlawful for any tobacco retailer <br />in Santa Ana to tell any flavored tobacco product. <br />To enforce such an ordinance, SAPD would need to expand its current enforcement <br />operations as follows: <br />Weekly business compliance checks to ensure no flavored tobacco products are <br />sold on premises <br />Increased use of undercover decoy programs to identify businesses selling <br />prohibited tobacco products <br />Additional infraction citations issued when illicit products are located <br />Increased permit staff time to revoke tobacco retailer licenses for habitual business <br />offenders <br />If the compliance procedure is to merely conduct routine compliance checks on <br />businesses that sell tobacco products, then the current funding associated with the <br />Tobacco Retailer License program has the capacity to absorb the added responsibility to <br />ensure compliance with the proposed prohibition on the sale of flavored tobacco.