Falmouth, Maine Passes Ban on Flavored Tobacco Sales

The state of Maine continues to be a hotbed of flavored tobacco sales bans, as on Monday the town of Falmouth became the sixth municipality in the state to enact such a ban.

The town council voted 5-2 in support of an ordinance that will make it illegal to sell any tobacco or nicotine product that imparts or is advertised to impart a taste or smell other than that of tobacco once the ban goes into effect on March 12, 2024. Retailers who violate the law will be subject to a written warning for a first offense, followed by a fine of $500 for a second offense and $1,000 for each subsequent violation.

The ordinance does not prohibit the use of flavored tobacco products in the town, but it does aim to make it harder for individuals to acquire those products, whether it be adults or minors.

The new ordinance seems to come from issues with high school students using vaping products at the town’s high school, with the council deciding that the best course of action to remedy the problem was to ban the sale of the products in the town, even with one councilor acknowledging that he didn’t know of a retailer in the town who would sell such products to those under the legal age.

One of the supporters, councilmember Janice de Lima said that she considered the ordinance a win if just five kids avoided or stopped using tobacco or vaping products, regardless of how much it would affect other residents or businesses.

Council vice-chair, Jay Trickett, spent several minutes critiquing the ban, citing studies that show bans on flavored tobacco products result in increased levels of cigarette use and saying that the council had public health policy backwards with the ordinance. He noted that passage of the ordinance will result in increased health risks for certain residents of the town, who will return to smoking after using flavored nicotine products as an alternative, and will likely drive at least some of the high school students who use vaping products to use tobacco. He also pointed out that the ban will hurt local businesses, many of which are run by residents.

“We are blundering about with a sweeping regulation that only indirectly addresses the problem and absolutely harms other residents because we feel the need to do something,” he said during Monday’s meeting.

He was joined in opposition by Tommy Johnson, who described the ordinance as being too broadly written, to the point where it would harm adults who are trying to quit using traditional tobacco products, as well as businesses that sell those products. He called on schools to better enforce usage policies in schools and for parents to have conversations with their children about the use of tobacco and tobacco alternatives.

He also pointed out how easy it is for vaping products to be purchased online with no age verification requirements and when he asked how this ordinance addressed this, was told simply that the ordinance wouldn’t solve all the problems.

Additionally, the council passed a resolution to codify its support of the ban:

The Falmouth Town Council believes that reduced access to flavored tobacco products could potentially reduce youth resident initiation to tobacco products and thereby decrease youth tobacco and nicotine addiction and associated health risks. The Council believes that this outweighs the potential impacts on adult tobacco product users and retailers. The Council supports the enactment of an ordinance to prohibit the sale of flavored tobacco products by tobacco retailers in Falmouth.

Falmouth has a population of just over 12,000 residents. The town joins Bangor, Brunswick, Bar Harbor, Portland and South Portland in passing similar bans on the sale of flavored tobacco products. The Hallowell City Council has also held a first reading of a similar ordinance.