The final weeks of 2018 will bring about a new ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products in Beverly Hills as retailers have been given a three-week reminder from the city that they will have to remove all such products by Dec. 21.
The new regulation applies to all tobacco retailers in the city and includes tobacco products such as cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff, chewing tobacco, smokeless tobacco, and electronic cigarettes. Of note, menthol cigarettes are included in the ban on flavored products. The city defines a flavored tobacco product as any tobacco product that imparts a characterizing flavor other than the taste or aroma of tobacco.
Once the calendar turns into 2019, a new regulation will be in place that prohibits smoking in all multi-unit dwellings in the city, and includes balconies, patios and decks. Existing regulations prohibited in all rental units governed by a new lease or renewed or extended lease; the changes now apply the ban to units regardless of when the lease started, as well as whether the unit is owner-occupied or leased to a renter.
The city says that the goal of the new regulations is “to protect the public from nonconsensual exposure to secondhand smoke in and around their homes, and to protect youth from commencing the inherently dangerous activity of smoking.”