Recommendation to request City Attorney to prepare an ordinance (1) amending Chapter 5.81 of the Long Beach Municipal Code (“Tobacco Retail Permit”) to prohibit the sale of all flavored tobacco products, except for those products sold at hookah lounges and premium cigars under certain conditions, within the City, and (2) repeal Chapter 5.94 of the Long Beach Municipal Code (“Sale of Certain Flavored Tobacco Products”) temporarily prohibiting the sale of certain flavored tobacco products within the City of Long Beach.  (Citywide)
Thank you. Well, we go on to the next item, please. We're gonna do item number nine. Item number nine report from Health and Human Services. Recommendation to request city attorney to prepare an ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code to prohibit the sale of all flavored tobacco products citywide. Turning it over to the staff or the city attorney have a report or comment on this. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We'll have a staff report from Kelly Collopy, our director of Health and Human Services. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council Members. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the request to establish an ordinance to prohibit the sale of all flavored tobacco products except for hookah lounges and premium cigars under certain conditions. A December 3rd, 2019, the City Council adopted Chapter 5.9 for the Long Beach Municipal Code, a temporary prohibition of the sale of certain flavored tobacco products, including flavored cigarillos, flavored electronic smoking devices, flavored electronic smoked smoking device fluid and menthol cigarets. As of January 4th, 2021, this has expired. We thank Councilwoman Price for bringing this item forward in 2019 and first supported this Council to pass that temporary measure. In August 2020, the California Legislature passed Senate Bill 793 to ban the sale of flavor tobacco products statewide. The ban prohibits the sale of all flavored tobacco products in California, with the exemption of hookah and premium cigars under certain circumstances. The Senate bill is more comprehensive than the temporary ban that was implemented in Long Beach, covering a wider array of flavored tobacco products such as flavored smokeless tobacco products. Senate Bill 793 was slated for implementation starting on January 1st, 2021. However, implementation has been postponed pending the outcome of a referendum planned slated for 2022. Statewide election. As of December 2020 over 60 jurisdictions in California currently have taken action independent of state action to regulate the sale of flavored tobacco products, and many more are currently working on ordinances at this time. Cities such as Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach have banned the sale of all tobacco products. Our Health and Human Services Department strongly recommends that the City Council take immediate action to adopt a permanent prohibition of the sale of all flavored tobacco products in the city, except for hookah rounders and premium cigars under certain conditions, as outlined in Senate Bill 793 to protect the public health of our community. We recommend this based on compelling data regarding youth utilization of flavored nicotine products. Impacts of nicotine to the youth brain and health. The Future Addiction. Based on early use of these products, it's essential to take immediate action for the safety of our youth. Nationwide, youth e-cigarette usage has grown nearly 20 fold in less than ten years, increasing from 1.5% in 2011 to 23.6%, including nearly 5% of middle school students in 2020. Both the FDA and the U.S. Surgeon General have declared that use use of e-cigarettes is an epidemic. Flavored tobacco products are currently the current youth. Driving are driving the current youth vaping epidemic. 81% of youth who have ever used tobacco product initiated with a flavored product. This includes all types of flavored products, including cigarillos, hookah and menthol products. Nearly 40% of youth who use e-cigarettes have never been cigaret smokers. It's the flavored e-cigarettes that are engaging them in Nicorette and nicotine use nicotine as damaging effects on the developing brain, which continues to develop up until about the age of 25. It changes adolescent brain cell activity in the parts of the brain responsible for attention, learning and memory and can interfere with emotion and impulse control in the future. A younger person is. A younger person is. When they start using nicotine, the more likely they are to become addicted. As of 2017, there are more than 15,500 unique e-cigarette flavors available, such as cotton candy, gummy bear and juice boxes. Flavors can create the false impression that a tobacco product is less harmful than it really is and lead to increased nicotine intake. An average cigaret contains 6 to 12 milligrams of nicotine and a user inhales approximately 1 to 2 milligrams. Flavored product range and nicotine levels from just above 0 to 90 milligrams a day for pods or about 41 milligrams of nicotine and puff bars are at about 50 milligrams of nicotine ether, often aware of the amount of nicotine they are. Vaping and vape devices also deliver nicotine more effectively and generally and higher content. In addition, the flavor additives themselves can contain chemicals that are harmful when inhaled. According to the Surgeon General, some of the flavorings found in e-cigarettes have been shown to cause serious lung disease when inhaled. At least ten chemicals identified in e-cigarette aerosol around California's Proposition 65 list of carcinogens and reproductive toxins. To add to the concern. E-cigarette products are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not yet subject to manufacturing standards. Studies have found that even though 91% studies have found that 91% of e-liquids marketed as nicotine free actually do contain some level of nicotine. Menthol cigarets are also concerning as they pose more of a risk than traditional cigarets because menthol users may be inclined to smoke more due to the masking nature of the mint flavor. Additionally, an analysis conducted by Truth Initiative found that partial flavor bans that exclude menthol as a flavor increase the risk of flavored tobacco users switching to menthol tobacco products. There also is a link between COVID and smoking and vaping. Emerging research is showing an ever stronger link between COVID 19 and smoking and vaping. Studies show that the smoking doubles your risk of severe symptoms, such as hospitalization and death from COVID 19. And it stems from the fact that menthol and other tobacco flavorings and e-cigarettes increase the severity of lung related, lung related illness so it's harder to recover from COVID. A separate study from Stanford University shows that teenagers and young adults were five times more likely to be impacted by COVID than peers that don't vape. The Health Department has continued through all of this to provide a robust prevention program, including partnerships with Long Beach Unified School District, the YMCA, Youth Leadership Institute, Families in Good Health at St Mary Medical Center, and many other community based organizations to bring vaping education to youth in Long Beach. This program conducts an annual seven week summer leadership program focused on youth capacity building and engaging youth in conversations on tobacco control issues and how to make their communities healthier. Your Health Department seeks your support to pass a permanent ban on all flavored tobacco products with an exemption for hookah and premium cigars under certain conditions, as outlined in Senate Bill 793. That ends my presentation. I'm open for questions. Thank you. Have Councilwoman Pryce, have you up first? I do have a pretty lengthy public comment if you want to go to public comment. Or did you want to make comments first? I'll just make some brief comments. I don't really have a need to hear myself talk, especially after that eloquent presentation by staff. Thank you very much. It was very detailed. I fully support this and I urge my colleagues to do so as well. The only clarification question I had is I know that the state exempts hookah lounges as well as hookah retail. I just want to make sure that our ordinance would align with the state. So I just have a point of clarification. Yes, the ordinance would align with the state. The state allows for retail for only if people if it's for 21 and over as a say so. It would allow for retail in that in that situation. Okay. Thank you. And, Mr. Mayor, I don't have any additional comment. So if you want to go to public comment, I defer. Entirely to you. Okay. Great. I will. Go ahead. I think that's emotion. I do have a second, but I think it's Councilman Austin. Councilman, should we do public comment and then I'll come back to you. Councilman Austin. Yes. That would be fine, Mr. Mayor. Okay. So, Madam Clerk, let's go through public comment, then. Our first speaker is Eva carbonara. Diva. Hello, carbonara. Uh. Yes. Hello? Can you hear me? Yes. Please begin. Okay. Perfect. How are the city council members? My name is Ava Carbonaro, District four, resident and senior at Wilson High School. Although much has changed for youth of Long Beach over the past year, there's still an invisible plague that haunts us. A virus that, in addition to the rise of COVID 19, threatens the lives and wellbeing of those it captures. Youth, nicotine addiction and the appeal of flavored vaping products is as dangerous as ever. Pandemic withstanding. As mentioned, previously youthful vapor up to seven times more likely to contract COVID 19 and suffer even more severe symptoms. Returning to in-person learning will never be safe as long as smoking persists on my campus. As a teenager and lifetime Long Beach resident, I urge you City Council to implement a permanent ban on the sale of flavored tobacco and ensure the safety of my peers. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Amir Khan. Amir. Brian. Yes. Please begin. Amir. Yeah. Hello. Yes, Ameer, please begin your public comment for item nine. Yes. I'm a store owner. I have two locations in six and four. And my comment was like, we've been hurting before. Like our business down by 30%. I wish it works, but what happens when you guys pass the law? All the business will signal help. Nothing changed except we lose business. It was the next city. All my customers. And then after you guys allow us to sell, buy from us after we stock up, now is going to happen the same thing. All our business is going to go down and all the money along with money is going to go to the next city. So I don't see was helpful. I wish the works but it wasn't helpful. It does give more business to the next city. That's my comment. So please consider we've been hurting because of quarantine. And then again, we're going to get hurt more after we purchase all this inventory. Then why not wait like the whole California people if they're going to vote on it? Why not? We'd like California to hold the whole state. Why? Only long before they do that? To harm us more and more with the coronavirus in the top of that. All the money goes to a different city. I don't know any of my customers. They stop because of smoke. Except. Thank you. Our next speaker is Charlie Patel. So. Hi, my name's Charlie Patella. I'm also a store owner. And like in last six months, once we banned flavored tobacco, all sales go to our neighbor city. And you look at like sales data, like about more than 70% of people of Long Beach, they smoke like menthol cigarets. And right now they're talking about like smoking is dangerous. But how do you consider like flavored tobacco is only dangerous? Non play what is not dangerous for smoking and please wait until California State decides to stop all state like menthol ban. Then it's going to stay the same customer either way all customer try to next city and they buy cigarets from them. Yeah. And for menthol you cannot stop anybody like that. Be like otherwise you have to make a distinction or something like that. So my concern please wait until the state here we decide like posted stop w where tobacco and menthol cigarets then so do not do right now at least due to COVID at least give us businessmen a little bit of any time. Either way, it's hurting too much to our business. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jamie Rojas. Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Hyman. I'm with the National Association Tobacco Outlets representing many of the retailers in Long Beach. We are definitely against the ordinance that's proposed. It's a shame that we're in the middle of a pandemic and the Long Beach Public Health Department is focused on this issue versus the issue of opening up business, vaccinations, distribution. And it's a wonder why things are a rea in regards to dealing with situations of public health in general. We completely oppose it. And I hope city councilor realizes that all they're doing is closing more businesses and losing the economic opportunities of businesses reviving in Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mark Torno. Good evening. Long Beach Mayor Garcia and City Council members. My name is Mark Torno and my family owns and operates Long Beach Circle K, which is a 76 station Circle K located at 6370 Strand Street in Long Beach, Palo Verde and Stearns. We're located in District four with our council member, Super Nine. We've been I've been a business owner in the city of Long Beach for 23 years, and I love Long Beach. I spent $2.1 million three years ago to rebuild this site and make it a beautiful site in the city of Long Beach. I pay a lot of business licenses to the city, to the health department. Business licenses. I pay a tobacco license and we oppose putting a ban on flavored cigarets. We're here to. To sell to our customers to make it so they don't go to other cities. You know, when they had that temporary ban on, we lost a lot of business. This year, our business is down over 30% due to COVID. I think right now we need to focus on saving lives. We got a lot of people dying from COVID. I think the health department needs to focus on that and that's not focus on labor. Cigarets Right now it's up to state do their job. You know, the state has that. Yeah. They're going to be voting on that state. Thank you. Our next speaker is Myra Batista. Myra Batiste. My Rabbi Battista. Sorry. Thank you. Hi. My name is Myra Batiste and I represent Natal. I like to give the examples of cities that have adopted a flavor ban and how it only makes adult customers travel to nearby cities and spend their money elsewhere. I'm taking away revenue from small. Businesses and still the youth. Find it online. And elsewhere. In are not regulated entities that they're going to find and that's going to be the problem. The mission of the city is to help and keep the underage usage of tobacco. Well, the stores that have legal appeal systems, that white cards are not the problem. Instead, the city should look at different ways that the retailers should help with school officials and find solutions and not take away from their revenue. I say please, please stick with SB 793. Give them a year and a half at least. This is something that at the very least, the city of Long Beach should be supporting their small businesses. So we should not be destroying them right now. There's a pandemic going on and right now we need to work together. The businesses, we do not feel supported by the city of Long Beach, and we want to be heard that this is not something that can be decided in one city council meeting. Please wait for the state. Do not hurt the businesses anymore and support us. Let's create let's create committees for small businesses to work with, with the schools and with the city. Let's work together. Stick with us. Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Rowe, a child? Hi there. My name is Mike. For the past couple of months, I've had the opportunity to get signatures to declare the California flavor tobacco ban until people can vote on it. Because of this opportunity, I was able to talk to thousands of people about this issue. The main consensus was that we should wait for the voters to decide. Of all the people I talked to, I want to focus on the younger generation and what they said to us. Almost every response I got from the younger people was, I don't care about the ban. I will get it either way. They said they would get it from different cities out of state. Online, which is unregulated or the scariest part is from dealers on the street. A lot of the stores that I went. Who they're already dealers selling illegal drugs outside the stores. And now young people are going to go to those same dealers, get unregulated, questionable products that might contain other harmful drugs. I know that in many past cases, dealers have also added stronger drug products to their clientele. Please, we don't want our kids to have any more access to harmful drugs. Let's wait for the state to figure out a better way. Thank you. Thank your next speaker is Primo Castro. Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Primo Castro, government relations director with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. Our goal is to reduce tobacco use and prevent cancer in our communities. We ask that staff be directed to draft the strongest ordinance possible to protect all residents of Long Beach from flavored tobacco. Specifically, this ordinance should include the following all flavored tobacco products, including menthol, mint and Wintergreen, include all flavored tobacco premium cigars, cigarillos, pipe, tobacco, snuff, chewing tobacco and loose leaf tobacco. Include all sheets of flavored tobacco products and exclude any exemptions for any tobacco product in this ordinance. Again, big tobacco continues to addict countless lives through the use of candy flavored tobacco, including flavored sheesha products levy tobacco continues to exploit communities in the name of profit. It is clear that Big Tobacco has not learned the lessons from the late 1990 tobacco master settlement agreement that found reprehensible practices to take tobacco advertising, marketing and promotion of these and cigarets to targeted communities. As one of the leading public health authorities, we continue to push for public policies that protect public health against cancer and other chronic illnesses. It is the reason, along with other public health organizations, we have led the fight to push for needed changes such as Pot 56. And thank you. Our next speaker is Vanessa Battista. Hello. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Vanessa, and I'd just like to start off by saying, in high school, I had the pleasure of working with the lieutenant governor and went on to work for the United States Senate. And tonight, I'd like to speak on behalf of my generation. I think one of the worst things that we can do for our youth in our upcoming generations is take away their right to make a choice, take away the right as a voter to express their voice and take away the right to education. Banning stuff. Taking stuff away has never helped. It's never worked in terms of the prohibition with alcohol. It doesn't work with abstinence. In fact, teen mothers that are pregnant have that are addicted to smoking cigarets are actually being told and encouraged to move on to vaping because there's less side effects and less harm for them, their bodies and their babies bodies. So vaping can be a big help to those who need it. And taking away the right to purchase tobacco isn't going to help education. Kids need to be able to learn. Education needs to start at home and in school. And furthermore, please consider the businesses, the local businesses, by giving them time. Let the California voters express their voice during SB 793. And don't take the businesses into your hands. Let California voice their opinions, exercise their vote, and be educated. Thank you for this time. Thank you. Our next speaker is after nine. The good. Hello. Yes. Afternoon. It's been a motif name. Yes. I would talk about my experience. Hello? Yes. Please begin your comment. Okay. I have a store in Long Beach. The border? Ramone Beach. And now you want to burn the minister and the Veep? I have a customer. We're going on Paramount. Buying the Cigarets the menthol cigarets from over there sale on Long Beach. Now you looking at that? I am losing my business. Just wait for the state for your voting. Give the customers the right to vote this or no thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Victor Sandoval. Hello. I please begin. Salutation to council members. My name is Victor Sandoval. I'm in the eighth District of Long Beach under Al Alston, but graduated from Jordan High School and I'm currently attending PCC. I would just like to inform you that I believe a permanent flavored tobacco ban would do this community well because of how flavored tobacco has been gaining prevalence within the youth of Long Beach, the Stanford School of Medicine stated that 97% of kids who smoke have done so with flavored tobacco products. This number amounted to 3.6 million kids from middle to high school. Imagine how much that number can be reduced by withdrawing flavored tobacco products. The reason why I want this effort to buy tobacco better passed is so the kids don't fall into addiction by flavored tobacco products, which can hurt them, especially during a pandemic. Please prioritize the health of our kids over the profit of us or another city like Signal Hill. Thank you for your time. Take care. Thank you. That concludes public comment for this item. Thank you. With that, I'm going to go ahead and go back around. And I have Councilmember Austin. I have a motion and a second by Councilmember Austin. Councilman Austin. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I also want to thank our staff for the presentation and the comments from the public. I want to thank Council Member Susie Price for bringing this item forward and back in December of 2019 and for the City Council for their bold support of a temporary ban on flavored tobacco here in the city. I think it was the right thing to do. It was the right decision. Moral decision. Because we know that the outcomes for youth are impacted negatively if they pick up addicting habits as youth, particularly smoking. A lot was said about our council's focus and our health department's focus, and I can I know for a fact that we are focused like a laser beam on COVID 19 and reducing our numbers there. But I think as other items come up this evening of those paying attention to the council meeting, we also understand that our focus is also on youth this evening and improving the outcomes for our youth in the city of Long Beach. I think some of the points were well taken and I do have a couple of questions just to follow up. But this permanent ban by having a permanent ban, I think we reduce the addiction to tobacco or for youth. We reduce the access for our youth and we reduce hopefully have impacts in reducing actual smoking habits among youth here in the city of Long Beach. And hopefully we can figure out some way to measure those outcomes over time. We want to also understand that that smoking leads to harmful outcomes, health outcomes, respiratory disease, cancer, even death. I mentioned when this item was before us. Before that I've lost loved ones, my own mother to lung cancer and smoking. And this this this smoking and the negative outcomes disproportionately do affect. Black people and communities of color. And so, you know, the moral thing to do, the right thing to do would be to turn to Turkey to support this this permanent ban. But I did have a quick question. Just understanding the state legislation and how it impacts other cities as it as was mentioned by some of the speakers and perhaps that this is for our city attorney or the city manager of the state legislation that currently bans flavored tobacco statewide. Can you give us an update on where that at and how that impacts other cities and what happens if we don't pass? An ordinance in the city of Lombard permanently banning. Taylor Anderson is on the on the line to answer respond to that question. TAYLOR Good evening, Councilmember. So Senate Bill seven 3793 was supposed to take effect January 1st of this year. The tobacco companies actually ended up gathering enough signatures for there to be a referendum. So and there is an injunction preventing this bill from becoming effective. So right now, there is no state law, in effect, prohibiting flavored tobacco products. It will go on the 2022 ballot for the voters of California to decide how to move forward. And it's my understanding that other cities in the interim are anticipating or waiting for that outcome, have banned flavored tobacco products because there is no state law in effect. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. I would just say that that I do understand the impact to to our small businesses and operators who have enjoyed selling this retail product for for many years. Well, but it's a horrible product and one that is is, again, the problem with our youth accessing these products in our retail stores. I really wish everybody played by the rules and this was only applicable and everybody and we were talking and having our only adult conversation. But this this impacted significant population in our city and we're doing our best. And the intent here is to to protect our youth. And that that is that is why I will be supporting this. I do understand the the the unintended consequences or creating an illicit market, I hope will will not be the case. But and I do believe that the economic impact on the city in terms of in terms of sales tax revenue is going to be negligible. But I would like to, if possible, have have that information and that information studied as well. But I'm supporting this item because I think it's the right thing to do and I encourage my colleagues to do the same. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, I have Councilwoman Mango. Thank you. If I could get an answer from the health department as well. I'm interested in knowing if the target is to eliminate youth, getting access to tobacco products that we may not be bringing forward an item that has more strict guidelines and consequences for businesses that violate the. And sell to miners. And we talk a lot about the health order. And we have restaurants that violate in restaurants that are good. And we wouldn't want to shut down all the restaurants because two or three restaurants aren't meeting the health guidelines. We would then want to enforce and shut down the restaurants that are the problem. Why are we not bringing forward an item that says one strike? You lose your tobacco license completely. You're both adult and your adult your license to sell adult products at all. So that's my question for the health department. Councilmember right there. Sort of two pieces to that. One, the developing brain goes until about the age of 25. Currently, any sort of focus right now is the age of 21 around tobacco products. And so it goes beyond the the limit for which people are monitoring the utilization of vaping. The other is that there are a number of adults who have never been smokers who had who had begun vaping and also, you know, increasing the level of nicotine and other addictions going forward. So we are focusing on youth, particularly because of the impact on brain and long term development. But that does go up through at least age 25, for which no one is, you know, focusing on the ability to sell their as well as on adult. And. When the state brings this item on the ballot. If the voters approve the measure as written, wouldn't this overturn our own local? Ordinance. If the state passes the ordinance, then we would request that we become part of the statewide. Which the signatures that were collected were for. Allowing flavored. No. Well, so if the if the. So I'm going to turn that over. The city attorney, though, explain it better. Yeah. I was just going. Let me help. Let me help. Yeah. Yeah. I'm confused by the number of comments I've received in my inbox, and I can't even tell the difference anymore between one side or the other. Yeah. No, it's okay. And this this is a this issue keeps growing, too. So the council letter, letter and recommendation from the health department as written would actually have a sunset provision in it. So upon the effective date of a statewide ban and our local ban that mirrored the state's language would be terminated. And so only the statewide ban would be in place unless the council took a different action. So what the voters are going to vote on statewide in the 2022 election is to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products statewide instead of just at the local level. And it would be it's just about all flavored tobacco products. The state did carve out an exception for hookah lounges and then higher end, higher end cigar products. I believe it's a $12 is the threshold for cigars and flavored marijuana is not in the ordinance either. So no flavor. Marijuana is regulated by a different chapter in the state law. So this is strictly under tobacco products. Okay. Well, my preference would be and I, I voiced this before, but it doesn't seem to have gotten any traction. I preference would be that when you have a bad actor who does something wrong, they should lose their ability to participate in the game. When we say, okay, well, here's I can give you an example. There was a vape shop in my district that has now gone under and now that land that landlord is out rent, the tenant has debt, the storefront is vacant and I cannot find anyone who will give me an example of any time they've seen a youth in his store, he particularly catered to adults and specifically focused on individuals who wanted to quit smoking cigarets and move over to flavored vape. And so in that case, we've lost jobs, we've lost viability. That storefront is now vacant during the pandemic and many of you know the challenges that come with vacant storefronts. And so just the the ripple effect of this policy, which I think kind of pairs with the same discussion I've had with Mr. Modica related to the ordinances that the Health Department puts out. The Health Department says, you know, we want 60 people six feet apart. And then they put out an ordinance or a health order that says we want be feet apart, because when people are asked to be eight feet apart, their chairs scoot and they become six feet apart. But yet for Mongo, you're 5 minutes, right? Thank you. There are unintended consequences because if we said the thing that we're trying to accomplish and legislated to what we are trying to accomplish, there would be less unintended consequences. Thanks to Mexico Councilwoman Allen. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to I just have a comment. I wanted to say that this is a public health issue. And I want to thank staff for taking the lead on this in light of Senate Bill 793 postponement. I also want to thank everyone who contacted my office to voice their support for this item. I think it's really important that I hear from the constituents and the residents on such critical issues like this. Labor, tobacco, and particularly vaping among the youth is something I'm definitely concerned about. Personally, my son quit his menthol cigarets because the band he just got out tired of driving out of the city to buy his menthol cigarets. And I'm here to tell you that the ban works. We are saving lives and we are helping our youth. And I think this is a may your step forward in improving the health of our communities. And again, I just want to thank staff and I want to thank the Health Department for their work on this. We're doing the right thing. Thank you. Thank you. Got some of your Ringo. Appreciate other comments have been made, I guess, to put it clarification legislatively. So the the the referendum that's going to come in 2022 is to. Have a permanent ban or not. So we adopt the permanent ban. What happens in 2022 if the referendum does not pass and it is not there? So council members. Are on the other way. Yeah. So council member if if tonight this council directs my office to draft an ordinance and an ordinance is put in place to ban flavored tobacco locally and the state does not implement a ban. Then the local ban would remain in place until this council either amended it or repealed it. Okay, that's all I have clarity that. Councilmember Super now. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you to everyone who participated in public comment. I just have one question, and I think it's for Taylor Anderson, and that is, should this item pass tonight? What would the timing be? When would that be brought back to council? Or more importantly, when would a ban go into effect? Good evening, Councilmember. I believe that we could get it back to you within the next couple of months. I don't even think that it would take that long because we have we have the states language to look to. So it should be fairly easy to implement. And then I'm sorry, what was the second question? Well, would it would there be a grace period built into that ordinance? Is that what you intend on bringing back? Oh, yes. For the retailers. Okay. So is in the council letter from the health department, there is actually a three month moratorium to allow the vendors to sell any product that they would have acquired between January 1st to now recognizing that our local vendors likely had acquired product. The time period is shorter than the last time that this council enacted a moratorium. And that's just recognizing that the amount of time that the vendors have had to acquire product, it's a it's a very short window, which is why it's only three months, I believe last time it was 180 days. Councilmember. Did you have anything else? No, no. The mute button is a little sticky tonight. I apologize. Thank you. Okay. Councilman's in the house. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you so much to Councilmember Price for bringing this forward for our city staff. I think that this is a very important item to bring forward. I know that a lot of our of our youths, including our Latino and black communities, are the most affected. And so it is always an it is always a priority of mine to see how we can improve the outcome of our youths. And so by providing such a and I think that we can definitely improve the quality of life, not only of our youth, but also of their families in this community. I do, however, appreciate all of the public comments, and I, I know that, you know, these are tough times, but we really have to look at the fact that this these tobaccos are really harmful to our youth, especially in the early years. But they can have over over lasting consequences that will last throughout a lifetime. And so it's very important that we take action. And I'm very, very much in support of this. So thank you again, Councilmember Price. Thank you, Councilwoman Zoro. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Two council women price. Excuse me for leading on this item. And I also want to thank Ms.. Collopy and the department for working on this. And I just want to share that I appreciate the comments and the letters and the meeting I've had with various members of the community that's concerned about these items. And I also want to share that the you know, the tobacco industry has also just really had a long history of targeting communities of colors and youth of color, especially around how flavored e-cigarettes and vapes have always been a risk for addiction for our youth, especially since a majority of youth of color lives in my district , as well as the north, west and north Long Beach. And how? And also the number of retailers that are in the district as well, making the accessibility of it that it is there. And I and I am in support of this item because I think it's really important that we decrease the accessibility and that we ensure that we increase our young people's health. And and so and for that, I'm a part of it. Thank you. Vice Mayor Richardson. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I won't take too much time. Congratulations to all involved. Councilwoman Price, when you when you stepped up and let this is obviously was a trigger for the whole state. So congratulations to you. We all know what this is about. Flavor, tobacco targets, young people. And we all are unified and making sure that we make the right decisions and that we move away from these practices. I can remember as a kid, the ice cream truck had little, you know, little pieces of candy blow on it and it looks like a cigaret and smoke will come out. Little pieces of a pieces of ground and we move away from all of those things. So I think this is the right thing to do. And this obviously has my support. Councilman Price. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, and thank you to the comments from my council colleagues. This really is a public health issue. And when we brought this item forward in 2019, it was long before COVID and we knew the public health risks, and now the public health risks are exasperated. In light of everything we know about COVID and protecting our communities from being vulnerable to illnesses like COVID in the future, hopefully we don't have anything like this again, but I think it's really made us all mindful of what we can do to get at the root of the problems and make sure that people are strong and are able to fight anything that comes their way from a health standpoint. I think that I just want to I want to thank everyone who called in, especially the businesses. But I do want to just remind folks that when we brought this item forward, I'm not sure how many remember my comments at the time. I really wanted this to be a permanent ban then, but we made it a temporary ban as a way to mitigate the impacts on the businesses. And we alerted them that we were providing sufficient time for them to pivot in light of the scientific research regarding these products. Regarding the national conversation and gave them time to try to get rid of the products that they had and think about an alternate business model. And what I shared with a lot of those businesses is I'm a small business owner myself. If there were research that came out that said the products that we were providing to people was scientifically found to have a public health risk. As an industry, I know that myself and other businesses in our category would have to shift and pivot understanding that the industry was changing forever. And I understand that they're scared and this is going to have a negative impact, but we can't ignore the national conversation that's happening. And in a way, to say that we're pro-business, we are pro-business. I think this entire council does everything we can to help our small businesses. But when we've got public health versus supporting business, we've got to find a way to move forward that doesn't endanger public health. You can't even compare the two. And I just want to make sure that everybody understands this is something that we did tremendous outreach on. And because of COVID, the item hasn't even come back to council. So there's been plenty of time for our business owners to be able to get rid of their product and anticipate the changes in the industry and pivot in light of those. And so with that, I want to be sensitive to them, whatever the city can do to help them pivot their industry in terms of what they're selling and how they're marketing in light of this new reality for them, I think we would do happily, but this is a national conversation. It is a statewide reality. And if the voters disagree with what we're doing today, then we can reassess the situation then. But until then, I just want to thank my colleagues and just remind everyone this is really about a public health issue and nothing more. So thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. With that, that concludes council comment. I do have a motion by Councilman Price and the second by Councilmember Austin. We can please do the roll call vote. District one. I. District two. I. District three. I. District four. I. District five. I. District six. District seven. By. District eight. Hi. District nine. All right. Motion carries.