"A ban, I think it's just lazy," said Abe Jadidian, who owns multiple smoke shops in the metro area. "A lot of great issues were raised, but I think they can all be addressed individually, without a ban."
Council will begin revisiting the concept of a ban on selling flavored tobacco products — which would end the sale of menthol cigarettes, flavored e-cigarettes, vape juices and hookah flavors — at a Budget and Policy Committee meeting on Monday, October 28.
Councilman Darrell Watson, who represents District 9 in Five Points, and Councilwoman Serena Gutierrez-Gonzales, one of the city's at-large reps, both of whom plan to sponsor the ban ordinance, met with residents at the Ocober 24 meeting; Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, another sponsor, had spoken during a virtual meeting the day before.
"We're all very concerned with this issue, and we all came from communities of color," Gutierrez-Gonzales tells Westword. "We want to make sure we are not continuing or perpetrating harm on our communities."
The sponsors have reignited a controversy that predates their terms. In December 2021, then-Mayor Michael Hancock vetoed a ban on flavored tobacco that had been passed by council, saying he'd prefer to see a state or regional ban; council failed to override the veto. It was one of only two Hancock vetoes during his twelve-year administration.
An attempt to ban flavored tobacco at the state level failed shortly after that veto and then again this past March, after Governor Jared Polis said it should be attempted at the local level.
Now Denver lawmakers are again making their case for the ban; they already have the support of Mayor Mike Johnston. "It is critical that we protect the health of all Denverites, especially our youth," says a statement from his office. "Mayor Johnston supports this initiative and would sign a ban on flavored tobacco if passed by City Council."
The proponents argue that flavored tobacco products disproportionately harm Black, Latino, Asian and LGBTQ communities and are advertised more aggressively to them. Jodi Radke, a regional director for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, laid out this position at the October 24 meeting, noting that these communities have high rates of tobacco-related cancer deaths, lower rates of successfully quitting smoking and more influences urging them to smoke.
"The common denominator is that tobacco use is somehow cultural," Radke said. "If you're Black America, somehow menthol becomes cultural. If you're from the Arab-American community, somehow hookah is now part of your culture. Death and disease are never cultural."
Radke also stressed that "if you're a kid, vaping is now part of your culture," something she blames on flavored tobacco. According to Radke, about 1.6 million kids in the United States use vaping or e-cigarette products, and "81 percent of kids initiated their use because it was flavored."
Vapes have a heavier dosage in each puff, she noted. With a consumer inhaling the equivalent of a cigarette and half with each vape puff, "our kids are one-to-two-packs-a-day smokers," Radke said.
Most of the audience was not swayed by Radke's presentation, and several members argued back as Gutierrez-Gonzales tried to calm the crowd. "No distinction is being made from vaping versus cigarettes" in Radke's presentation, one pointed out. "So it comes across as a little disingenuous when you then say, 'Kids are smoking cigarettes, so let's ban flavored products.'"
"We need to talk about this," said Philip Guerin, who runs Myxed Up Creations, a chain of smoke shops in Colorado. "Let's make a deal" before any law is passed, he urged, adding that smoke shop owners shouldn't be seen as doing the wrong thing for selling flavored tobacco products.
"We need to talk about this," said Philip Guerin, who runs Myxed Up Creations, a chain of smoke shops in Colorado. "Let's make a deal" before any law is passed, he urged, adding that smoke shop owners shouldn't be seen as doing the wrong thing for selling flavored tobacco products.
"We think we're doing the right thing. We're not trying to do a bad thing," Guerin argued. "We're generating public revenue for the government...you can quit vaping. You can't quit smoking."
Radke responded to those concerns by noting that "a small percentage" of Denver residents use flavored tobacco products over cigarettes and other combustible tobacco products, so the ban shouldn't really hurt revenues.
And it could also help get a statewide ban through later, she says.
"The state looks to the local movement and passage of these policies to really be the tipping point or the voice that is coming from the majority of residents," Radke adds. "That's part of that path to the state policy passing, is being able to show the support and commitment."
Colorado has seven flavored tobacco bans in place: in Snowmass, Aspen, Boulder, Golden, Carbondale, Colorado Spring and Edgewater. A flavored tobacco ban in Denver, the state's biggest city, would be "very impactful," says Radke, who notes that more than 400 cities across the United States have flavored tobacco bans.
"The reason we do these policies is because they're based in science, they're based in evidence and they have demonstrated proof that they keep kids from starting," Radke says. "The goal here is to keep the next generation from becoming the adults who are looking for ways to reduce their use of combustibles or a product perceived as less harmful."
