California Town Debates Outlawing Single Cigar Sales

Gardena, CA, an almost 60,000 person city located within Los Angeles County, will debate an ordinance that would make it illegal to purchase single cigars within city limits. The Gardena City Council will look at the measure as an attempt to restrict underage youth from purchasing cigars.

Councilman Dan Medina, the person who introduced the proposal, was quoted in the San Jose Mercury News as supporting the ban, even though he is quoted in the article only discussing the effects of cigarillos. The article notes that Gardena imposed additional local taxes on merchants to help pay for a variety of anti-tobacco measures including inspections and police stings.

Medina isn’t quoted on adults or premium cigars, other than that he supports the ban because of the risk adults are buying the products for teens.

The article quotes Gardena police lieutenant Mike Saffell, who seems to negate the prevalence of underage smoking when it comes to premium cigars:

Single-sold cigars enable youth to engage in that type of activity. Commonly they will remove the tobacco and put marijuana in its place… Someone who’s going to smoke marijuana is more apt to buy a 10-cent cigarette as opposed to someone who smokes cigarettes and is buying a package or carton.

The meeting will take place at City Hall (1700 W. 162nd St.) at 7:30 PM local time. Ironically, nearly ten months ago a cigar and wine festival was held outside the same building to benefit Gardena’s senior citizen daycare.

According to a tweet by the  IPCPR, premium cigar and pipe retailers are exempt, something that was not mentioned by the Mercury News: