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The Pasadena City Council is poised to ban sales of all flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, in the near future. Officials unanimously voted in favor of the blanket prohibition on Monday, directing city staff to come up with a new set of laws which would allow retailers to sell only tobacco-flavored products.

Before it can become a law, the City Council will have to review the suggested ordinance and vote on it at least twice. In the laws proposed on Monday, fruity flavors would be illegal alongside more traditional flavors, such as menthol and cloves. The consumption method doesn’t matter — it could be cigarettes, chewing tobacco, vaporizer cartridges or other tobacco products — none would be available for purchase in Pasadena if the proposed law passes. It’s all in the name of protecting Pasadena’s youth, officials and activists said.

The tobacco companies “kinda back-doored us here and managed to hook a whole new generation,” Mayor Terry Tornek said about the introduction of tobacco vapes, which often use such fruity flavors as mango, bubblegum and countless others. Critics say the tobacco industry markets these products at children.

“The tobacco industry knew what they were doing when they started calling (flavors) ‘bubble gum’ and ‘unicorn poop,’” said activist Deidra Duncan, who identified herself as the chair of the Tobacco Prevention Coalition. “What adult would want to inhale poop? Unicorn poop.” Pasadena’s director of Public Health, Dr. Ying-Ying Goh, said the proposed laws will bring Pasadena into line with a similar countywide ban slated to take effect in May. Federal regulators also recently banned the sale of fruity flavors, but Goh said Pasadena’s laws will “close a loophole” in that bill, which allows for disposable e-cigarette products. If the laws pass, Pasadena will join 56 other cities and counties across the state which have passed similar legislation, according to a staff report. Nearby, El Monte officials are considering the same move. Goh argued the ban is necessary, citing 2,668 hospitalizations across the country from lung injuries sustained by e-cigarette or vaping product use as of Jan. 14. Sixty deaths have been reported in that same period. According to the California Department of Public Heath, the vast majority of teenagers say their first use of a tobacco product was flavored.

Similarly, high school juniors in Pasadena Unified were five times more likely to have used an e-cigarette compared to a traditional cigarette, according to a survey conducted by the California Department of Education. To complement the ban, Goh said, the city would undertake an education campaign directed at students. The city would also seek additional grant funding to pay for additional law enforcement to better police the retailers. Currently, the city has a grant for this expressed purpose, but it’s set to expire in July, Goh said. A police investigation revealed a quarter of the city’s 74 tobacco retailers illegally sold products to minors.Under the current city law, retailers are fined $250 for the first offense. That’s doubled with the second offense, and retailers are charged another $500 for each offense after that.

For council members Margaret McAustin, Tyron Hampton and Andy Wilson, that’s not enough. They called for the penalty to be elevated from an infraction to a misdemeanor and asked for staff to increase the penalty fees. McAustin went one step further, calling for staff to report on the feasibility of a total tobacco ban in Pasadena. “This is where we’re headed as a city, as a country,” she said. The move came during a joint meeting between the City Council and Pasadena Unified school board.In a show of solidarity, school board officials passed a resolution decrying the dangers of youth tobacco use.School board member Lawrence Torres asked district staff to meet with the city’s Health Department to try and develop a school curriculum to outline the dangers of tobacco use.

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