Outside a smoke shop in Hermosa Beach, the ground is littered with colorful packages. The boxes read “Blue Razz Ice,” “Orange Peach Nectar,” and “Strawberry Kiwi.” These aren’t candy- but flavored vapes, notorious for their sweet taste and addictive qualities. Yet, peering through the window, there are none on display. During the midterm elections last year, 61% of California citizens voted in favor of Prop 31, which banned flavored tobacco products in the state. Almost a year later, after investigating the efficacy of this ban, it’s become evident that it’s all smoke and mirrors.
Much like a prohibition-era speakeasy, this is an undercover operation. Customers mill about the store, scanning the walls before finally asking the employees in a hushed voice. They produce a “secret menu” from under the counter, a bound and laminated booklet. Inside, complete with decorative fonts, is a laundry list of brands, flavors, and intensities.
The more you pay attention and ask around, the more flagrant and occasionally ridiculous these concealment methods become. At one shop in Redondo, they’re hidden in a series of wooden chests, easily mistaken for decoration. At another in Manhattan Beach, it’s more high-tech. The employee quickly punches a passcode into an iPad, and suddenly, the screen is flooded with options for you to scroll through and self-checkout at your leisure. An unassuming cabinet swings open at another shop in Inglewood, revealing a rainbow of colors painstakingly organized in neat rows. Though more often than not, there is little effort to conceal them at all. Vape shops within a mile of LMU, UCLA, and USC all had their flavored tobacco products on prominent display.
In addition to Prop 31, Los Angeles passed its own Senate bill, SB 793. It was an extension of a pre-existing STAKE Act (Stop Tobacco Access to Kids Enforcement) that makes it illegal to sell to those under 21 or to use tobacco at places like schools or children’s sporting events. (Health and Safety Code Section 104559.5). SB 793 went into effect on January 21, 2023, and now prevents tobacco retailers from selling, offering, or possessing with intent to provide and sell flavored tobacco products.
Flavored tobacco is defined as having a “characterizing flavor” and a distinguishable taste or aroma, with offenders incurring a $250 fine enforced by local law enforcement. Specifically, under municipal code LAMC 46.90.1; which dictates that permitted tobacco retailers found in violation would be guilty of a misdemeanor. However, a representative from the Office of the City Attorney clarified that there haven’t been any criminal cases filed under this code, and an administrative citation program is instead handling its enforcement. Therefore the threat of a misdemeanor charge and a fine is as real as the ban itself.
Overall, fifty vape shops were put to the test over two months (October and November.) All were in Los Angeles or the surrounding area: including Culver City, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lawndale, Venice, Torrance, and Redondo Beach. Worth noting, Redondo Beach and Culver City have banned flavored tobacco products since 2019, three years before the new ban came into effect. The Lion went into these retailers, posing as customers. Employees were explicitly asked if they carried flavored vapes if they were not on prominent display.
Due to possible influence on the data set, recognize that the Los Angeles tobacco market has many different subcategories and specialties. What’s advertised as a “Smoke Shop” can apply not only to vaporizers but also traditional cigarettes, hookah (which is exempt from the ban), CBD/THC, and glass, like bongs or pipes. Thus, the absence of flavored tobacco may not be a direct consequence of the ban, but of a conscious choice to ‘specialize’ in a specific product like Hookah. Non-flavored vapes were also exempt from the ban, and several retailers were selling the permitted ‘clear’ or ‘tobacco’ flavored vapes exclusively. Typically, these are sold for the same price as the illicit flavored vapes of the same brand and intensity. For instance, a disposable ‘elf’ bar, one of the most popular products, is sold for $25-30 dollars with or without flavoring.
In total, thirty-three of the fifty (62%) vape shops in this survey sold flavored vapes, more than half. Breaking this data down even further, the average offending retailers within a given city was 67%. Los Angeles was the most significant subset within the data pool, with twenty-nine retailers. Of these, twenty-one were found to be in non-compliance, 72%. The remaining thirty-one were broken up into the aforementioned seven adjacent cities, with anywhere from 1-7 shops surveyed based on their size and total number of retailers. Combined, the number of offending retailers was 69%. Culver City and Redondo Beach, the two cities that banned flavored vapes back in 2019, had a 100% failure rate at the two shops randomly selected in each area. With a failure rate this high, it’s evident that despite massive public outcry that put the ban in place, its enforcement is either too lenient or being neglected.
Even some retailers are airing such grievances. In March of this year, the ABC7 I-Team investigated the efficacy of the flavored vape ban in the Northern California Bay Area, reaching out to dozens of local tobacco retailers. They found most of these businesses never received any guidance on how to conform to the new law, nor was an officer from the health department ever sent to see if they complied. The few who did only received a phone call. Still, these business owners report being solicited for tobacco products by hundreds of teens every day. The very impressionable youth that Californians came out to the polls to protect.
To put things into perspective, in 2019, the American Society of Pediatrics followed approximately 500 Los Angeles teens from 10-12th grade. Among those who vaped, they found that 9/10 used flavors like fruit or candy as opposed to traditional tobacco or menthol. Furthermore, the teens who smoked flavored tobacco products were 64.3% more likely to continue vaping six months later, compared to only 42.9% of their counterparts who used unflavored. More needs to be done to ensure the future of these young people doesn’t go up in smoke.
At LMU, we see these products every day on the Bluff, at parties, and in bathroom stalls. Temptation is everywhere. As a student, you may even be an active participant in this underground ecosystem. Still, the point of this investigation is not to shame the people who use or buy these intentionally addictive products. It is to bring awareness to our negligence of such issues once they make it past the ballot box. More thought needs to be put into the success and enforcement of such policies after the fact. While you may not share the values of the fellow citizens who voted this policy into place, one should be able to acknowledge the importance of ensuring that as voters, not only are our voices heard, but action is taken.
