A bill for an ordinance amending article XI of chapter 24, D.R.M.C., to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products and accessories. Amends Article IX of chapter 24, D.R.M.C., to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products and accessories. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 11-17-21.
I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. When they told us. 12 eyes count the bill 21 dash 1352 has passed, and now we can release the folks that were seen here for that hearing and the others. We are now on to our final hearing of the evening. Councilmember Ortega, will you please put Council Bill 1182 on the floor for publication? Absolutely. This is the one many of you have all been waiting for. Madam President, I move that council bill 21, dash 1180 to be ordered published. Thank you. And we've got a motion. And the second. Councilmember Flynn. Your motion to amend. Thank you, Madam President. So, just so folks know, there will be a public hearing before there's a vote on this amendment, but we're making the amendment first. So you know what you can comment on. I move that council bill 21, dash 1182, be amended in the following particulars. One on page two, line 28, ad or menthol. After other. Than the taste or smell of tobacco. Two on page two, line 30, strike menthol. Thank you, Councilmember Flynn. It has been moved and seconded comments by members of Council on the amendment. Councilmember Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. This amendment leaves menthol flavored tobacco products out of the. Out of the tobacco. The flavored tobacco ban. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Flynn. Councilmember Black. Thank you, Madam President. It's my intent to bring forward a Second Amendment tonight that would exempt specialty basic shops and tobacco stores from the flavor ban. All right, thank you, Councilmember Black. Councilmember Cashman. Thank you, Madam President. It's my intention to bring forth an amendment tonight that if the flavored ban bill passes, that the date of implementation be changed from July 1st of 20 to to July 1st of 2023. All right. Thank you. Council member Cashman. The 30 minute courtesy public hearing for Council Bill 1182 is open. Speakers may address the bill as well as any or all of the offered or intended amendments tonight. And we'd like to have the staff report and we will have Councilmember Sawyer. Go ahead and give the presentation. Thanks, Madam President. Due to the fact that we have done three community outreach meetings, three committees, 20 meetings with councils, with council members, and at least 40 meetings with the members of the public, small business owners, lobbyists, etc.. We're just going to go ahead and skip that tonight and move on. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Sawyer. And this evening, we have scheduled a half an hour, 30 minutes for speakers. We have 41 individuals signed up to speak tonight. And so I would ask that if you don't need to use your 3 minutes for your comments, that you be brief and allow others to use that time as well so that we can hear from as many speakers as possible. Let's see, we are going to go ahead and start now and we have in chambers Brian Fertik. If I mispronounce your name, you can correct me, Brian. Thank you, Madam President. My name is Brian Voytek. I'm a Denver resident speaking on behalf of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets and hundreds of Denver member stores. Youth smoking and smokeless tobacco use have been declining for decades. Both are at historic lows. Recently released, FDA data demonstrates that youth vaping has declined 60% over the last two years to levels lower than 2014 seven years ago. Paid advocacy groups are attempting to use legitimate concern about youth vaping to ban thousands of products that youth are not using that have nothing to do with vaping. Additionally, majority of independent convenience store and gas station owners are women, immigrants, people of color, and people for whom English is not a first language. These businesses have experienced significant losses in fuel and in store sales. These women and minority owned businesses that were essential in Denver in 2020 should not be forgotten in 2021, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey Survey. 86 to 90% of the time, youth do not acquire products from retailers, but from older family members and friends. There's no rational basis to believe this ordinance will reduce youth access. It may actually increase it, and the effort has failed everywhere it's been tried. Even more concerning are three recently published peer reviewed studies demonstrating that when enacted, these flavor bans have resulted in increased smoking among youth and young adults. That would be a horrible outcome from a public health perspective that will fix anything, only make things worse. This ordinance will result in local women and minority owned businesses closing. That will result in businesses leaving Denver. It will result in Denver ites losing jobs and it will be a windfall for retailers located outside Denver. It is our hope that the city council rejects this massive expansion of the failed deadly war on drugs. We hope that instead of pursuing bans that don't work, the council instead focuses on age verification, compliance penalties and on multilingual education for retailers and stops crushing minority owned neighborhood businesses. This ordinance is patronizing and elitist. Adult African-Americans and Hispanics in Denver do not need a nanny and city hall. We believe that people of color are capable of thinking and making decisions for themselves, and they should be allowed the right to do so legally. It is our hope that reasonable members can come together and at least mitigate the damage this ordinance will cause, particularly to people of color in Denver. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker in chambers is Mary Zamora. And then our next speaker in chambers is Scott Alderman and then Alberta Simmons. So that you can get ready. Go ahead, please. Thank you, Madam President. And thank you, counsel. My name is Mary Zama. I'm with one of the owners of Smoker Friendly. We're a fifth generation Colorado family owned business. We have six locations here in Denver with over 30 employees. This proposed ordinance has had many has many flaws. And it's very disturbing the way the process has gone through, being jammed down our throat as business people. I was here three times to speak at the committee hearings and. Finally got to speak tonight. So thank you for that. I didn't get to speak at any of those. I just have a couple of things because I've written to you all a few times, but today. I wrote you kind of. A detailed note. But I, I want you to know that this type of ordinance does have a financial impact on both your city and your retailers and the employees of those retailers. Denver has not provided a full financial impact study, which I think is irresponsible, to say the least. As a retailer, I can tell you each of our stores sales will plummet. We will have to pull over 1000 products off of the shelves if an ordinance like this was passed. We have a case study because we have a store in Glenwood Springs. And after a similar ordinance was passed in Glenwood Springs, our location sales are down by 72%. We've laid off four of our six employees, and quite frankly, the only reason the store remains open is that our landlord made us a great deal on rent and begged us to stay so that he didn't have an empty spot. So we will stay through the end of the lease. But I just want. You do know that this is a truthful, real world case study that happened within an ordinance just. Like you're looking at. Tonight. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions, but I don't want to take more time. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Scott Alderman. Good evening, city council members. My name is Scott Alderman and I am the District One Director for the Denver Public Schools Board of Education. I'm delivering the proclamation from the Board of Education that received the unanimous support of the full restrictions on flavored tobacco at our November 18th board meeting, the proclamation reads. Whereas the Denver City Council's voting to amend ordinance Article nine, Chapter 24, the RNC to restrict the sale of flavored tobacco products. And. Whereas, flavored tobacco products are on the rise and have created a youth nicotine addiction epidemic. And. Whereas, tobacco companies in recent years have significantly stepped up the introduction and marketing of other flavored tobacco products, particularly e-cigarettes and cigars, as well as smokeless tobacco and hookah. And. Whereas, flavored e-cigarettes are undermining the nation's overall efforts to reduce or reduce youth tobacco use and putting a new generation of kids at risk of nicotine addiction and the serious health harms that result from the tobacco from tobacco use. And. Whereas, tobacco companies, market products and many kid friendly flavors such as gummy bear, berry blend, chocolate, peach, cotton candy, strawberry and grape. And. Whereas, flavors play a major role in youth use of e-cigarettes because they match the taste of tobacco and make it easier for new users to initiate use. And. WHEREAS, the campaign to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids States, a 25.9% of Colorado high school students accuse e-cigarettes. In 1400, students become new daily smokers each year. And. WHEREAS, Published research studies have found that kids are twice as sensitive to tobacco advertising as adults and are more likely to be influenced to smoke a cigaret marketing than by peer pressure. One third of underage experimentation with smoking is attributable to tobacco company advertising. Now therefore be proclaimed. The Board of Education for Denver Public Schools supports ending the sale of all flavored tobacco products in all locations in the city and county of Denver. I also want to mention the DPS Healthy Kids Colorado survey provided by our Superintendents office. So first, there has been a large increase in vaping among DPS students the past eight years. In 2013, 11.5% of our students had tried vaping in 2019. That is that number is now 39.9% regarding smoking. 6% of DPS high school students have smoked cigarets in the past 30 days. Of the of the students who have smoked in the past 30 days. 35.6% have used menthol cigarets. And I have been instructed to emphasize that the City Council should not make an exemption for menthol in their flavor ban. Thank you for doing the right thing for our youth by ending the sale flavored. Ticketed free speaker. Next up, we have Alberta Simmons, followed by Philip Goren and Arthur Way. Good afternoon. Members of the City Council. You know, politics is one thing, but life is something else. And. Last week. This time I buried my brother. And today I found out that my sister passed. So. And I want you to know that both of them signed the petition that says do not put a ban on menthol cigarets . At some point. City council. You all are going to have to come to the realization that black folks got all my we can think we're not going to give people of young people cigarets or cigars or anything. You have them like zipped premium cigars, which all white men with money smoke. You have this hoopla by calling it a courtroom thing. But you are fighting the exemption for menthol, which is also a cultural thing because 90% of black people, men and women, smoke menthol cigarets. What are you going to do? You go. Next thing you go do chores. As black people, we can't eat collard greens because that's a cultural thing. I mean, at the end of the day, you talk about fairness. You've got to be fair. You talk about equity. You've got to be equitable. You've got to treat us as if we are equal, both as we as black folks, as we are. Our constituents get treated like you do when you come to our community and ask for our votes. You got to treat it the same way. And at the end of the day, all we ask is that you do not ban menthol cigarets let us choose as black people. Let us choose what we want to do as adults. But we certainly don't want kids smoking cigars, cigarets anything like that. I agree with you on that. But I also agree that you've got to give us leave us with our choice. And our choice is to give out menthol cigarets menthol products a chance. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker in chambers is Phillip Goren, followed by Arthur Wei. And then we're going to move online to Dr. Dimmer is the first person online. Go ahead, please. Thank you, Madam President. And thank you, esteemed members of City Council. I appreciate this opportunity to speak until green. I own mixed up on Ivy and Colfax. I have been in business in Mayfair for 29. Years and. That is a lot of paying taxes. I want you to know that I'm proud to be from Denver, born and raised, same neighborhood. My I'm proud to be a father to my 11 year old daughter. Goes to the same school that I went to. I'm also proud that I've helped thousands of people stop smoking cigarets. I'm also mostly proud that kids don't get. Vapes from mixed up. From me. We all agree that children should not vape. I think that more should be done at home and in the schools. Things should be enforced. Things should be a lot stricter. There's a lot of things in the world that in the adult world that kids should not take part in. And bad words is one of those things. That's why movies and videogames are age restricted. I've heard a lot of horrible responses about what we're trying to do to stop kids from vaping in the bathrooms, in schools, and from the council itself. And honestly, I went to Emmanuel High School and hearing that they took all the stalls out of the bathrooms and it hurts my feelings like in a in a serious way and like we can do better for our kids. And this ban doesn't fix that. I've heard from the council that we want to lead as a city. Then let's not follow San Francisco. Colorado has always been somewhere geographically between Texas and California. And Coloradans, we know. We're like a mixture of Texas. And Colorado. And that's what makes us the coolest state in the union. A dodgy flavored vape products. To quit smoking. Cigarets. I've smoked. Cigarets. I have vague. Sometimes you get an urge for a cigaret. Maybe it was something you drank. Maybe something that you ate. Maybe it's something you remember. And instead of smoking a cigaret, I have the choice as an adult to use a flavored vape product. And I like flavored vapes. I don't like tobacco flavor. A ban would have a huge negative impact on our community. Everybody's heard of loosies. The police have choked people to death for selling loosies loose cigarets. If you think loose these were a problem, imagine the problem on the streets. With vapes and then your kids will be getting these things. From. Dealers and peddling things that are not safe. We're proprietors. We we are the centurions that look out for our communities. We're the ones that make sure that kids don't have these products. History has taught us that bands don't work. And this is just one more example, and I don't want to hear that vapes are the gateway drug to Cigarets. That's ridiculous. That's what they told. Us about marijuana. And every single study has proven that wrong. And they we legalize marijuana. And actually the voters did that, not city council. And it was the right decision. Please. No ban. Thank you. And I'd ask. You end up taking time from other speakers if we have folks clapping. So I'd ask that you not do that so that we can hear as many members as we can in our half an hour. Arthur Way. Thank you. Council President Art Wei, Drug Policy Consultant I've spoken to many of you on behalf of clients within the marijuana equity space. I want to thank you for your positive votes there. I've also spoken to you all for clients regarding this issue of flavored tobacco bans. Based on my experience, 15 years as a drug policy reformer, police accountability advocate. These type of bans bother me for three specific reasons. First, and specific to menthol, Cigarets is patronizing. There's no other way around it. What we're basically saying is if you came to this habit from the Marlboro Man or from Camel Joe, the cartoon or from the beautiful skinny white ladies of Virginia Slims, we're not worried about you. We think you can handle your health. But if you came to this habit, do a Billy Dee Williams or Miles Davis in a Newport ad. We need to intervene because you're just a consumer and you have no idea how to take care of yourself. And it's disrespectful to a certain extent and to a large degree, and it's bothersome. I know proponents will say that, well, menthol is the starter and it's harder to quit. But that data is weak that that that is seriously weak and just not as strong as the data that shows that these bans create more problems than they're worth. I'll remind you all that the broader health care inequities that the black community faces is problems that I wish the African-American public health people who are behind these bans would instead deal with, instead of dealing with the results of the broader determinants of public health that my community faces. The second problem I have with these things is they are a typical drug war soccer mom, knee jerk reaction. The focus is only on the supply and does not for the demand at all the places where these things have passed. There are no provisions to do anything for the users. It's all about how can we punish the sellers? And in this case, the sellers that you're punishing are the mom and pop tobacco harm reduction, just that, a settlement based in the local Denver economy. You're not punishing big tobacco with these bans. They're going to make their money whether their product is sold legal or illegal. Lastly, if you want to really lead on this issue, you will dove into the issue of marketing and promotion. That's why we're here in the first place, right? We're mad at the way big tobacco marketed and promoted their products. If you want to lead on this issue, see what you can do about further restrict the marketing and promotion. See if you see if you could get $1,000,000 earmark from Michael Bloomberg, who's funding these campaigns to put into our communities and specifically educate our communities about how the tobacco industry has been. There are other ways to lead on this issue. Many of you all are better than this. This is not a way to lead. Thank you so much. Thank you. Our next speaker, we're going to go online. We've got Dr. Demeure online and then Angela Garcia, followed by Sarah Barnes. Good evening, everyone. My name is Dr. Timothy Dimer. Tonight, I. I'm here as a pediatric specialist with Kaiser Permanente. As a black woman. And as a mother. I'm here to provide and highlight some information that I think we all know. And then as grown adults, we can make a decision for our community. So as a pediatrician, I can attest to the youth e-cigarette epidemic that the U.S. surgeon general identified just a few years ago. The tobacco industry has done a fantastic job making kids believe that there is nothing harmful in e-cigarettes with enticing flavors like watermelon, raw, cotton, candy and bubblegum. For many children, this appealing flavors and the abundance of variety of flavors might be the only reason they actually vape. With this innocuous flavors. It's no wonder that when I learned from my patients, children, about the deadly carcinogens in the flavored vapes, they're smoking, they're completely unaware and astounded. And this is even more true of mental flavored cigarets. For decades, the tobacco industry intentionally targeted communities of color, which has resulted in disproportionate tobacco use and adverse health outcomes. Menthol is a key tool that big tobacco is used to make this happen. African-Americans only make up 12% of the US population, but account for 41% of smoking related premature deaths. Tobacco companies know that almost all tobacco users begin their addiction as children, and menthol flavors help menthol masks the harshness and irritation caused by tobacco smoke, making it easier for kids to experiment with tobacco use and become addicted. About half of all. High school smokers use menthol cigarets. Preference for Newports, which is the menthol Cigarets, stands for and is even higher among black users because of predatory marketing. As the gentleman earlier mentioned, the prevalence of mental use is highest among black smokers. In the 1950s, less than 10% of black smokers use menthol cigarets. Today, after decades of tobacco industry targeting, that number is 85%. We cannot afford to wait for what will likely be years before the FDA finalizing implements the necessary regulations around menthol and flavored tobacco products. The inevitable tobacco industry lawsuits could even cause more delays. All the while, black lives continue to be exploited for profit. So as. A mom. And a physician, I ask you to. All do the right thing. I think eventually we're going to have to stand up to the tobacco industry because they purposefully tried to hook children. All the children in our communities to an addictive substance. So thank you for your time. Then consider voting yes in favor of the ordinance to restrict the sale of flavors tobacco, including menthol. Number. We'll go to Angela Garcia online. Sarah Barnes online. Thank you, Madam President, and council members. My name is Sarah Barnes, and I'm the manager of. Special policy initiatives at the Colorado. Children's Campaign. The children's campaign supports the ban of flavored nicotine products because Colorado's youth vaping rate continues to be. Very high in relation to the rest of the country. And we. Know that flavored. Products, including e-cigarettes and cigars, are appealing to and highly utilized by youth. 81% of kids who've ever used. Tobacco started with a flavored. Product, and youth overwhelmingly. Cite flavors as a major reason for their tobacco. Use. This includes menthol flavored products as nearly. 50% of. Youth, ages 12. To 17. Who smoke traditional cigarets use menthol. In addition, because youth often get access to nicotine products through an adult who purchases for them, it's important that flavored nicotine products also be banned and age restricted stores banning the sale of nicotine products as a critical way to reduce the youth use of nicotine, which negatively impacts their health and. Also harms their developing brains. We urge your support of this policy, and I thank you for your time. We'll go to Hyman out in my online. We'll go to Kailash Karki online. Now we'll go. To Terry Richardson. In chambers. Thank you. Members of the council. I'm Dr. Terry Richardson, an internal medicine physician. And the vice chair of the Colorado Black Health Collaborative. And I'm passionate about health. And achieving health equity. Some of what I'm going to. Say you've heard already. But I'm going to say it again. I'm here today to support the ordinance ending the sale of. All flavored tobacco products, including menthol. Menthol, as you know, makes it easier to start smoking and harder to quit. But menthol and other flavors are especially. Appealing to youth. These products, while they may. Mask the harsh. Taste of nicotine, are not sweet. They are highly addictive, especially for youth and people of color who are heavily marketed by big tobacco, menthol, tobacco and other flavored products should be banned, so they are no longer used by tobacco companies to lure. African-American and other children to become lifelong smokers. This ordinance gives our youth a chance to. Be tobacco free and healthy. Bar flavor. Should be. Banned to prevent. Disproportionate disease and death attributable to long term use of these cancer states. And I did that because people were being rude. So anyway, let me go on. There are some that would like to exempt menthol from the flavors ban. This whole debate on exempting menthol products is not about doing the right thing. It has nothing to do with choice. Everyone knows that banning menthol is the right thing to do. But the issue is that profit. Is being put before people in public health. Big Tobacco has spent decades pushing these products on young, black, LGBTQ and other marginalized communities. Menthol, tobacco and other flavored tobacco products should be banned so they no longer can be used to lure African-American and other children become lifelong smokers. Also, I think it's important to note that menthol tobacco is not a part of black culture. This misperception was created by tobacco companies that use black smokers as guinea pigs to protect their products and marketing strategies. And I want to dispel another myth Black people will not be arrested for smoking menthol products once they are banned. The players ban ordinance is not focused on individual consumer possession. Black people are profiled and stopped by police due to the color of their skin, not because the brand of the tobacco product they may be smoking. CPAC has heard from our community and will continue to advocate and fight on behalf of the community to ensure that flavored tobacco products, including menthol, are banned. Saving lives. Truly saving lives is the end game. Please put people and public health before politics and profit. Let us do the right thing and save lives. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Our next speaker in chambers is Joe Miller. Maloney. And then we have Raymond Smith and Cornelius Wright. Madam President, esteemed members of the Denver City Council, John McCloskey, former Colorado Democratic state representative and current consultant. To 21 mom and pop. Small, responsible vaping stores that truly have helped thousands of adults wean off smoking more harmful cigarets. I pass out a presentation. I'd like to. Briefly review some interesting pieces of background information first. Did you know there's about 7000 chemicals in a single cigaret? About 93 of which are known carcinogens like. Charcoal and tar in the vaping. Products that my 21 small business stores in the city and county Denver sell. There's about 12 major ingredients, no charcoal and no tar. We've helped thousands of adults not be part of the deadly statistic. We're 480,000 Americans die in the United States of America through cigaret smoking. 96% of our sales are to adults with flavored vaping products because it helps them forget the disgusting cigaret smell. If you remove 96% of the company's profits, they would definitely go bankrupt and out of business. On Slide four, the presentation I sent you. On the left. Side, we sell the large, bulkier, more. Expensive open tank devices, not the small, discreet dual devices that you'll see in schools. The next few slides go through how 14 highly respected international and domestic health care organizations have all. Acknowledged the research, the websites and white papers that flavored vaping products have helped adults wean off smoking more harmful cigarets. There's numerous differences between the products that my 21 client small business stores sell and what George sells. When you walk into one of our stores, we start you at 25 milligrams of nicotine, half the amount. Of what George sells. We wind you down to eight, nine, six three, even zero. Milligrams of nicotine. One third of our clients have zero milligrams of nicotine and the average age is 42. The next few slides talk. About economic impact as well as about the ISO safety standards that we employ. As well as all of the. Regulatory standards to make sure you still access our products. But I'm telling you, go to any resource officer at any Denver high school or junior high where they hold up the oversize Ziploc bag of confiscated vaping products. Those aren't my clients products. It's interesting. On November 17th, we had a lot of debate about people passing on from smoking cigarets and I thought a lot about my uncle Norm, who smoked 31 years in Michigan and died of heart failure and many of the tragic situations that the council president and Councilman Sandoval talked about, their loved ones. And I really believe that if vaping products would have existed for adults years. Ago, he'd be alive today. We have to meet people. Where they're at. It's why Great Britain and other countries have utilized flavored vaping. Help adults wean off smoking more harmful cigarets. I encourage you to vote for the age restricted amendment and thank you for your time, Counsel. And thank you. And our next speaker in chambers is Raymond Smith. Raymond Smith. Okay. Cornelius Right. Good evening, City Council. I'm Cornelius. Right. And I own a cigar. Lounge in the great district in Chris Hines. And I'm here today because I understood that there was an amendment for cigars. And with that, I could just go my way and say thank you. But I keep hearing menthol, menthol, menthol. And it just it just kept me up at night because I remember as a child growing up in an inner city, and I remember asking my father, Why don't you just buy a house over there? Today, those houses are worth a lot more. He looked down at me and he said I couldn't buy a house over in that area during that time. Engage me, if you will. A person that's been in Park Hill his entire life paying taxes. Walks into a convenience store. Followed by any person of any other race who probably is visiting Denver, Colorado. That person goes in. 80 to 90% of the time, the cigarets that they want are on the shelf. 80 to 90% of the time. The African-American will be told. That. You have to go. Over to another. County to get your cigarets. There's something about that that just isn't right. An adult has the means to make a choice. And I understand when it comes to health. Well, if that's the case. What about the rest of the cigarets? I know we're not having that conversation today. What about the rest of the cigarets that are on the shelves? Do we move on to the health food? No, we don't. So if this is not a targeting, if this is not something that focuses on the African-American community. Then let's make it about youth in my business. We are responsible. We have a new Denver and county license now. We have to abide by the penalties are raised. There's also. Training. All of my employees go through it. I think we should put the safety. Of the youth in the forefront and not expound upon a race. Conscious element. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to go ahead. We've hit our 30 minute mark, but I'm going to go ahead and go through the short list of speakers in this in this tranche of folks that we have here in chambers. And then we'll go ahead and have council members ask questions and we'll continue with the hearing. Next up, we've got Raymond Smith. Raymond Smith. All right. Sharif Saleem. Sharif Saleem. Monica Van Drew Scott. Correct me if I mispronounce your last name. Hello. My name is Monica Vandross. I'm a small vape shop. Owner here in Denver. I'm 38th between. Navajo and Mariposa. It has become clear to me that some may see the lives of vapers as expendable. But I don't. But I want to assure you that is not true. Each one deserves the right to less harmful alternative to Cigarets. It's people like my husband, my mother, who has been a closet smoker for over 30 years, and the customers that I have had a rough year asking us for help when they went back to smoke. All our valuable people who quit smoking using flavored vapor products. And these are the only people who are going to be affected. Without the age restricted amendment. It does nothing to stop the Snapchat bathtub manufacturers. It does nothing to stop adult only products from showing up in the mail over a year and a half after statewide sales. It does nothing but leave responsible business owners like me with no history of selling to miners out of business. You said that you put all these new measures into place to help miners stay off of Combusts or stay off of vaping products. You took my money for licensing. You refused to enforce these new laws. And your only solution? The solution is to ban me out of business. It's completely unacceptable. It's unacceptable to stand in the way of adult smokers who want to quit using flavors. It's unacceptable to say that the gum with a 6% success rate or patch and a 9% success rate is a viable option for smokers and then ban flavored vapor that is at least twice as effective. It is unacceptable to say this leaves room for a sensation when this legislation is written in a way that requires vapor products to go through just double jeopardy process. It is unacceptable to imply that my business plan includes a 90 day closure, a $5,000 fine just to sell my Myers, which is the furthest thing from the truth. I've heard the phrase selling to minors to the next generation. Too many times to count. If you walk into any vape shop and ask the owner that something doesn't even make sense. Not for a second. There is no next generation. There is only smokers. The 4080 480,000 people who die of a year of smoking to start big tobacco, but without a strict amendment for shops. Big tobacco is going to be the only one left. No more independent vape shops. More often we have a lot of reach speaker. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I really appreciate everybody. Appreciate everybody's patience with the hearing and the amount of time that this has taken. We want to I'm just checking on something here. All right. We're going to go ahead and go. I'm going to take a point of privilege here, because we want to make sure that there is fairness in the pro and the for and against. And so I'm going to go ahead and skip back here in chambers and we're going to have Joi Walker be the next speaker here in chambers. Do we have Joy Walker with us? Yes. Okay. We're going to go ahead and you'll be our final speaker tonight and then we'll go ahead and have questions from members of council. Go ahead, please. Ray, if you remind everyone introducing yourself. Pardon me. Introduce yourself. Please. Yes, ma'am. Joy Walker, Denver resident. First, I oppose the proposed menthol ban. Menthol ban? Why? It's offensive to me as a black woman. Not only am I a black woman, I'm a black woman that has multiple sclerosis. So banning things that I use to help me definitely throws me off. It's offensive to some of us in the black community that this bill banning vapor flavors has been rewritten to allow exemptions for hookah bars and high end premium cigar bars. But menthol cigarets and lower cost flavored cigars mostly consumed by people that look like me. Black people, respectfully. They aren't exempt as well. They are not exempt as well. Some people might say the hookah exemption is appropriate because it's a cultural experience. Some might say high in price. Cigars should be exempt because kids won't get their hands on them. Black adults are capable of making choices and living by those choices respectfully. For my part, we don't need the city council. To help keep these products off the black out of the black community. We are adults. We are capable of making our own choices. If you are. Truly acting with equity in mind. It should be across the board, wouldn't you say? Wouldn't that be fair? Kind of across the board there. Not pick and choose where we want to go with. All right. Okay. So, again, you know, I appreciate you all hearing me speak. I have been waiting a long time for this. And again, banning these products used mostly by black people is an equity issue. And I am a black woman standing before you today. I use these products. I'm not a criminal. I'm a taxpayer. I own property. You know, just those type of things. We want you to know that. We keep hearing everyone say the children, the kids, the kids. This isn't about the kids. You police your children at home. That's your job. Not my job. No disrespect. No disrespect, however. Two more seconds. Thank you for you all time. Thank you for letting me be a black woman in 2021 and actually making some decisions that affect me in my household. I'll keep an eye out of my kids. I promise. Thank you. All right. We are going to go ahead here and. That concludes our speakers this evening. We're going to have questions from members of Council on Council Bill 1182 and or the First Amendment. And I again, thank everybody for their patience. I thank you for your passion. We want to make sure that we're able to hear what everybody else is saying and the conversation here. And another quick reminder, we do have a face covering mandate in Denver. And so really appreciate folks complying with that as well. And so questions from members of council. I know that we've already got folks queued up here. We've got council member Sawyer, your first. Thanks, Madam President. I appreciate that. I wanted to ask Joe McCloskey, do you have a cease and desist order against you that has been served by you, by organizations to you to stop using, to stop representing that vaping saves lives? Now. Can you commit to that? You're going to have to come up to the podium and we ask that you again, introduce yourself before you answer the question. Madam Council President and Councilwoman. So, you know, the only letter was the CDC use of the logo, which we stopped using. The rest of the 14 health care organizations that were quoted all have citations from peer reviewed research websites and white papers. Okay, great. And before you go, has the FDA approved any flavored products for smoking cessation? 4.6 Madam President. I yes or no. Question Has the FDA approved any flavored products for smoking cessation? Madame Council President and Councilwoman Sawyer 4.6 million adults. I'm sorry. That was a yes or no question. 4.6 million adults have used flavored product. I asked you to quit smoking. More harmful cigarets. Thank you, Councilman Sawyer. I'd ask. That means I'd ask that folks who are called up answer the question. But I also want to have patience from our membership as well. If there's further information, we want to hear that information, too. So, Councilmember Sawyer, do you have anybody else you'd like to call up? I do. I want to ask Jody if you Jody Radtke, if you could come up. Yes. Thanks. Can you introduce yourself for the record? Yes. My name is Jodi Raad Kim, the regional director with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Okay. Thank you, Jody. Have you are you aware of any flavored products that have been approved by the FDA for smoking cessation purposes? No, there has not been any approved submitted application from the vaping industry as approved cessation product to date. Okay, great. Thank you. And can you just please remind me while you're up there how many what the percentages of youth smokers and vapers who are using menthol flavors? About a third, I think, director alderman testified earlier as well. Over a third, about 36% of Denver students currently use menthol and other vaping products and other tobacco products. Menthol is a second flavor of choice. Okay, great. Thank you. And can you just one last question. Refresh my memory on the, uh, on what we learned in, I guess, Minneapolis and Saint Paul regarding 21 plus stores and the efficacy of the, the ban with that exemption. So there have been a couple communities that have since gone back to either strengthen their policy or close their loopholes based on the way that the vaping and tobacco industry have navigated or attempted to navigate around it. They have done things like create stores inside of stores and they have created greater problems for their councils where they've gone ahead to strengthen it over time. But the problem is a lot of these stores started investing in some of these modifications that their counsel had requested. And so they are trying to really inform major municipalities across the country to learn from their mistake and to learn from their error. And so I believe Council member Prince Jean Prince had sent a letter to all of you talking to you about the direct problems that they experienced. Oakland experienced similar problems and many more. They had about 5 to 6 stores across the city, which quickly proliferated to over 60. And they have since gone back this last year to close that loophole. And they no longer allow. Age restricted facilities to sell. Great. Thank you very much for that information. Really appreciate it. And I am not sure if Director Balder Min is still here. Oh, hi. I just have a quick question for you. I'll ask it while you're walking up, if you can just re-introduce yourself for the record, but wanted to just ask for a little bit of information and feedback on the kinds of issues that DPS is seeing with youth smoking and vaping in the schools. So skateboarder and on the DPS board and I mean, we were definitely seeing a lot of behavior issues in school right now. And we've we've seen an uptick in in vaping, vaping, related issues, smoking. We've had smoke alarms going off in George Washington High School. I'll speak for my own son who is talking about how they have. It asks the members of the audience, Please refrain from speaking so that we can hear the speakers. Go ahead, please. It's just really disruptive. I mean, we're coming out of COVID right now trying to focus on learning and teaching. And there are many distractions. And this is one of of many, but definitely disruptions and others. I'm going to talk about my son how a Graham middle school they are they were doing a festival on a Friday afternoon and some of the kids were not were not able to participate because they had rules around vaping and smoking that prevented the kids from participating. It was just it was a new thing for me as a as a father of a middle school kid, to have to have these conversations with my son. And, I mean, it's very real in our schools. And the statistics I mentioned earlier, eight years ago, we had 11% of kids that have tried vaping and we're now almost at 40%. It's a huge jump. So it it is it's very disruptive in our schools. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks, Madam President. Thank you. Councilmember Sawyer. Councilmember Hines. Thank you. Council President Moretti. Mia, have you come back up for a second. Please? So I have two questions, both FDA related. Can you tell me a little bit about what the FDA, uh, they, they made a, um, announcement or something in 2009 about the products. Can you tell me a little bit more about what the FDA has said regarding these products? Yeah, I think I may understand your question. If I don't, please clarify and I'll try to answer it as directly as I can. So in 2009, federal legislation was passed that removed all flavored cigarets from the market. The only remaining flavor at the time that was left was menthol. They did not have jurisdiction over cigars or vaping products at that time. That authority was added in 2016, and it also added cigars during the 2009 legislation. It was made clear to the industry those who work within the industry as well as a few other public health, that the removal of flavors, including menthol, was essentially imminent. So when cigars and vaping products and other the others were added within the deeming rule, really the industry was put on notice in 2009. So if they essentially decided to open a store or a business that sold only those products, they were really taking rolling, taking a really big chance in doing so. Yeah. And thank you for the correction. You're you're right. I was incorrect in saying flavored vape products, so thank you. I can understand why you were. Anyway, the so they in 2009. Four. Flavors said that this was something that the FDA was no longer going to support is that that I'm just going back to what what specifically they said as opposed to the implications of of the ruling in 2009. So in 2009, again the flavored all flavored cigarets. So there used to be some of you may remember a number of cigaret flavors that were very similar to what we see, not in the same quantity, but very similar to what we see in the world of vaping. So there were vanilla, there were cherry, they came in fruity flavors and colors very much like we see today. At the time, a task force was they were charged to put together a task force to further study menthol and to come back with their recommendations. And the task force was very directive and what those recommendations were. And that's where you seen some of the activity recently, especially in this last year, about the FDA starting to take action now around removing menthol from the market. And there's very solid, substantial evidence for why they're doing so. Okay. So. So that actually was my second question about FDA was I think in 2009, they made an exception for menthol. And and as you're saying, there's a conversation more recently. Is there is there also is is there some legal action against the FDA for their menthol carve out? Now, there's been several lawsuits for the inaction that has there's been a significant delay in the FDA taking action. So there's been a number of lawsuits filed against the FDA to prompt that action. The most recent being from some partner organizations, American Medical Association names we know and respect that are credible. And the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council and Ashe Action on Smoking and Health filed a lawsuit against the FDA based on the subsequent delays and not taking action around menthol. And so now we are seeing they are in the rulemaking process and so that is moving forward and as a few things. And if you think things move slowly at the state level or at the city level, we all know how slowly it moves at the federal level, but that is definitely in action currently. And the nature of that is that there are the idea is to ban flavors and then menthol is also a flavor. So how can you not if you're banning flavors, you're blame banning flavors. It's not new banned flavors except for this one is I think that's the nature of the lawsuit. The lawsuit was specifically named menthol on behalf of the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit around the an action that was taken with the FDA. So it was specifically spoke to menthol in that lawsuit. And so that's what's being responded to. And then the FDA is also taking further actions around removing flavored cigars from the market as well. Thank you. Thank you. Question is that answer your question. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Hines, Councilmember Black. Thank you, Madam President. Councilwoman Sawyer, I think you asked both Joe McCarthy and Jody Radtke if. The FDA had approved flavored e-cigarettes as a cessation advice. And I think that the answer was no. But I just wanted to point out, I have an article from The New York Times from October 12th of this year. That said, the Food and Drug Administration for the first time on Tuesday authorized an electric cigaret to be sold in the United States in green lighting a device and tobacco flavored cartridges under the brand name. Beause the agency signaled. That it believed that. The help. Certain vaping devices offer smokers to quit traditional e-cigarettes is more significant than the risk of ensnaring a new generation. The statement concluded, the FDA determined that the potential benefit to smokers who switch completely or significantly reduce their cigaret use would outweigh the risk to youth. So I just wanted to clarify, I think your question was specifically about flavored vaping products, but according to the article in The New York Times. Madam President, can I respond? Sure. Just a minute. Are you finished, Councilman? The BLOCK. Go ahead. Councilmember Zoya. Yes, that's correct. Councilwoman Black. And also the bill specifically exempts any products that are approved by the FDA for smoking cessation. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Sawyer, Councilmember Black, did you have any other questions? Not right now. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you. Councilmember Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. I like to call Arthur way up the figure. I was intently listening to your three minute testimony. I wanted to get your reflection, if you could please, one on something that hasn't yet been addressed by those who would support my amendment. And that is the issue that the black community surely prefers. Menthol Cigarets. I've heard that for three hearings now, but what I'm being told is that we need to adopt this ban because you have been targeted by predatory marketing. Now, I kind of feel like Captain Renault in Casablanca saying I'm shocked, shocked that a mass marketer would determine what its market is and advertise toward it. And maybe we'll go after Chivas Regal next. But could you tell me your reflection and your opinion on whether you as whether your community has been unfairly targeted by predatory marketers any more than, say, a Virginia Slims smoker or the Marlboro Man that might target white smokers or cowboys? You know, I was I remember being upset as a as a teenager when I started to see McDonalds commercials where, you know, a bunch of hip hop music being played and it seems like our culture was put on display in order to sell their product. You know, this is nothing new for the black community. And more than anything, I don't know anybody in my neighborhood that that smokes menthol anymore. I couldn't say that 20 years ago. Over the last 50 years, 33 million fewer cigaret smokers exist in this country than in 1970 and our population has doubled in that time. And black people are. Rates have gone down, maybe not as much as white people, but the fact that our smoking rates, given the structural inequity and the health care inequity that we deal with, are similar to white folks. I think that's a victory. You know, when you look at the smoking rates of the Native American community is ridiculously high. And I know tobacco has a long history within the indigenous culture here in this country, but I think their smoking rates really reflect the amount of poverty and structural inequity that they're dealing with. And despite, you know, Newport and everybody going at the African-American community, we've seen it all before. We know how to deal with it. And I just want to remind you all that. You know, there's a difference between deaths that are caused by smoking and smoking related illnesses, our smoking related illnesses and the disparities that we have in regards to our smoking related illnesses. Primarily tracks back to the disparities that we face within the health care system when it comes to access to health care, when it comes to standard health care being lowered and what our white counterparts face. So, you know, the fact that marginalized communities who deal with a lot of structural inequity on a day to day basis may have a harder time quitting than other communities, I don't think should surprise no one. And I think that would be the case, whether we smoked menthols or Marlboro Reds. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Flynn. Councilman Hines. Thank you. Council President. Mr. McCluskey, will you? I think it's only fair if I asked Miss Radtke the question. Would you also be willing to it? The question that I asked earlier was about the FDA in 2009 and the action that they the determination that they took and also regarding their lawsuits on menthol products. If you'd be willing to address that, that would be great. Madam President and Councilwoman. Hines, thank you for the opportunity to speak about this. There's two interesting deets about the FDA that provide context. First is the famous 2009 legislation that President Obama signed. What's also interesting is about late 2018, early 2019, there was an FDA decision that basically being flavors in small, discrete dual type vaping products, but allowed flavors to exist in large, bulkier, more expensive open tank products like the ones I described on Slide four of my presentation earlier. And this next, that's really, really key. From 2009 to 2016, youth vaping didn't exist. It wasn't an epidemic. These thousands of stores, there's 14,000 stores in nine states of America that are small mom and pop, about average 650 square feet with eight employees. They have a 41% market share. They peacefully coexist. And people like Amanda Wheeler and by the way, her husband Jordan are here on their sixth wedding anniversary tonight. They flew in from Phenix because they feel so strong. They have stores throughout Colorado and they started in oh nine because they wanted to quit smoking cigarets. It was only in late 2016. Early 2017 is when RJR and Altria and these massive international tobacco companies poured tens of millions of dollars into Jewel and Blue. And that's when you saw the youth epidemic. They've ruined it for us. We've existed. Helping millions of Americans adults wean off smoking cigarets. Those two key dates are really important. The lawsuits are 16 hour conversation that would take up the rest of the night. But I wanted to talk about those two key dates. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Council President. Thank you, Councilmember Hines. And looking here, we don't have anyone else up in the queue for questions and so want to give it a moment. Then I didn't miss anybody. All right. Councilman Herndon. I thought I. Was all right. I was. I was just. Then. I have. Waited as long as. I know. I think. Mizrachi could I have a couple of questions for you if you could come up? And so you are obviously in support of this bill. The bill that we have before us. And my question, though, is you've been supportive throughout the entire time. Even with the exemptions of hookah and cigars, your organization is still in support. Correct? That's correct. Now, here's the unfair question. If menthol was exempted, would your organization still be in support? We would not support the ordinance. You would not support the idea because menthol helped me understand why. Mental is then largely targeted over decades two African-American, LGBTQ, US and our Hispanic Latino communities. It is also the second most predominant choice among our kids, which has grown exponentially over the last couple of years. People tend to think or say or refer to menthol as being an adult flavor, which is simply unfounded and then factual. If you look at the data here in state, that is also true. Okay. So menthol menthol is your line in the sand. So would you would you would you believe that? So you're suggesting that the bill with the menthol exemption does not meet the spirit of reducing teen vaping within the city and county of Denver? Can you repeat the question? So I'm asking is you in support of the bill now? We exempt mental. You are no longer in support. My understanding. Let me know. This is incorrect that the purpose of this bill is to reduce teen vaping within the city and county of Denver. So if I'm going to attest that you're no longer in support, then you believe that the bill does not meet the spirit of that of its intent. That's correct. We're going to tell this widely, again, used by kids. But our intent is not solely to prevent kids from using the products. Our intent is to protect the public. Health. Of our community. And here in Denver, which includes both kids and adults, menthol, most of our adult tobacco users started at the age of 13 and they become addicted very quickly. Addiction is not a choice. So oftentimes you'll hear this being referred to as multiple choice. But addiction is not an adult choice. At age 13, your physiological pathways are changed. Menthol makes it much more palatable to use the product. It also makes it harder to quit long term. Here in Colorado, the rates. I'm sorry. I don't I don't want to interrupt everyone. I know we're getting late and we have other amendments. I want to go back to the statistic that you said earlier, that you said a third of youth are using menthol. I want to make sure I heard that statistic correct when you threw that out. A third of Denver kids that smoke are using ventilated cigarets. That's correct. And that's from the Healthy Kids Colorado survey data. And when was that survey done? And the last it's done every two years. And the last survey data were reported in 2019. Current data is being collected for 2021. Okay, I had one more question. My apologies, Madam President, and just escaping. Okay. Thank you. And Director Bald. I mean, could you come back up again? Appreciate it. Thank you for being here. So I just wanted to go back to what you were talking about with. And actually, I have the same question. The school board is in response to the unfair question. We exempting who? We're exempting cigars. Do you believe and you can give me your personal opinion, if we exempted menthol, this would no longer DPS would no longer be in support of this bill. I can't speak for the Board of Education or our policies prevent me from speaking on behalf of the board. But as a as an educator, you were speaking to the challenges you were using, the examples of vaping and all the challenges in school. By exempting menthol, would we no longer meet that spirit, in your opinion? So we have a whole department or we actually have somebody. I want to I want to figure you're going to ask me a question. So I wanted to pull up the information from our. Michael Holden is our substance abuse prevention program. He's the head of that department and he's the one that has done all the research on this and provided the information. I'm the messenger on this. So I'm actually not an educator. I'm just a parent. But he's the one that gave me the information in the statistics and was the one that emphasized the importance of including the the menthol. And phone it. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Mackey, I remember the question. My apologies. The FDA has not authorized flavored tobacco as a cessation. You can come on up and ask the question so you can be quicker. And I agree with that. They have not. So do you not believe that flavored tobacco can be a cessation technique? I believe that the vaping industry, if they believe their product, has the properties that it claims to have, that there is an application process through our federal government that they should go through in order to submit their product to be studied, for its efficacy, to determine if it. Is indeed a. Successful FDA cessation approved product, in which case they would be doing that recognition. So you do not believe that. As as Councilwoman Sonya said, it was kind of a yes or no question. So do you not believe that it cannot be used? Can flavor tobacco be used as a cessation to smoking? There. What? There hasn't been one submitted yet for that. So you do not believe that then, and that's fine if you don't. I just want to know if your organization believes that. Thus. Far the studies indicate. No. That flavors are not required to assist with cessation. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Herndon. The public hearing is now closed. The First Amendment is on the floor. Comments by members of Council on the First Amendment. And we want to go to the sponsor of that amendment. Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. We have heard through the course of the various committee meetings and tonight a lot of testimony that conflicts from the same community, the same communities. We've heard communities of color who want us to adopt this ban entirely. And we've heard from communities of color that want us not to adopt it entirely. So it's a very difficult position for me, a person who looks like me to be in right now. So we've gotten an outpouring of e-mails on this issue over the last couple of months. And among them, we have emails that say don't put any loopholes in the ban. And I just wanted to say push back a little bit on that. I don't consider this amendment to be a loophole. I consider the ban to be an overreach and that this amendment slightly pulls back and allows adults, whether they're black, LGBTQ and Latino or white, to make their own damn up, to make their own decisions. Excuse me. About what they want to use. And Madam President. So that's why I brought it forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Flynn. And I just wanted to remind folks that we are talking about the First Amendment that Councilman Flynn offered the menthol flavored tobacco product exemption from the flavored tobacco ban. Next up, we've got Councilman Cashman. Yeah. Thank you, Madam President. White people smoke menthol. Cigarets. Black people smoke cigars. We have a lot of race issues in this country. I think they're misplaced in this particular discussion. I'm going to go to the side briefly, Madam President, and that I made a mistake in bringing forth my cigar ban because I used a word that came out of California, which was premium cigar, when what I meant was a natural hand-rolled cigar that. Doesn't have a tip or a filter. So I ask the sponsors to change the wording from premium to natural. I'll spare you reading my list, but I have a list of about 15 cigars costing $3 or less. My father worked six days a week and smoke cigars. He didn't smoke expensive cigars. This is not a race issue. The other thing that and this is just in my mind, most of the people I know today that smoke cigarets. It's not a matter of freedom of choice. Most of the people I know today that smoke cigarets do not wake up in the morning thinking, oh, I don't need a cigaret today. Maybe I'll go for a run. Most people smoke and cigarets today that I know are addicted to cigarets. They do not have a choice. So as far as menthol being a choice, I don't look at anything to do with Cigarets nowadays as a choice. That's just my view of things. So as far as. Targeting Black people's freedom of choice or their ability to make decisions as far as smoking goes. And if you're smoking today, I'm sure there are some of you out there that smoke cigarets occasionally. Maybe after a good meal or with a glass of wine or something. Most people that I know smoking nowadays, it's not a matter of choice. So I don't do this that way. And I have other comments, but I'll save those for other amendments. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Cashman. Councilmember Black. Thank you, Madam President. I do support this exemption simply because I don't think banning menthol cigarets is going to prevent anyone from smoking menthol cigarets. They can be purchased in all of our neighboring cities. The stores that sell them in Denver will lose out on that business. We've heard from small mom and pop convenience stores that rely on people who come in and maybe buy a pack of cigarets, menthol or otherwise, but they also pick up a few groceries and they'll lose that business. And I really care about those small businesses in our community. I come from a small business family and they employ people and they pay rent. And I don't think we should have a policy that punishes them and also will not work. It won't prevent anyone from smoking menthol cigarets. So I am very interested our way. Great ideas. Let's talk more. Let's as a council and a community, talk about other ways to address reducing smoking and preventing youth use. But this is not going to work. I also want to point out that it's not going to prevent anyone from buying a pack of girls or buying marijuana or buying alcohol. And so we 20 people who are 21 and older are responsible and they should be able to buy what they want and. Cornelius Right. I love your name. I what you said you go to the shop in Park Hill and if you want the menthols, they send you packing. So I just it's, it's not effective. So I support the menthol exemption. Thank you. Councilmember Black. Councilmember can each. Thank you. Council President. I guess that I just want to observe that the conversation in this chamber is has played out with a narrative about small business and choice. But, you know, the lobbyist registrations for this issue, you know, include Altria, which is the largest seller of Cigarets in the United States, whose website begins with We're Moving Beyond Smoking, the largest cigaret smaller seller in the United States. You may know them better as Philip morris. R.J. Reynolds is lobbying on this bill. I feel sad that our community is divided in a racially charged debate with humongous national corporations who stand to profit, and only the users of these products suffer the cancer and the effects of addiction. Right. So these products, this is all proven. They were designed to be addictive, designed, perfected, tested. And they profit multibillion dollar corporations. So. I have to put that on the record, because if you were to listen to this debate, you would not know that fact. You would not know the facts that big tobacco is funding lobbying efforts on this bill and big tobacco benefits from every sale of a menthol cigaret. I will acknowledge that no public policy is perfect. But to be a leader is to take the right stand for the health of our community. And the difference with this type of a situation is the health costs are borne by our community. We give tens of millions of dollars each year and your tax dollars to Denver Health to treat smoking related illnesses. All of us, if we are insured, pay higher premiums for that insurance because of the effects of smoking. So the cancer and the, you know, other lung related diseases and other things that come from menthol cigarets. May be born first by an individual. But the costs to all of us in society and so forth. So I want to just be clear that we are being divided today by mass corporations making billions and trillions of dollars in profit. The second thing I need to put on the record is that we are here today because of failure of our federal government's product protection. Right. This is the level of government that is supposed to make policy in the interest of public protection. My colleagues are right that we'll have a patchwork in Colorado if this measure passes, but that I've never seen with climate. I've never said, well, the federal government failed to act for four years and in fact made things worse. So we in Denver should sit back because our part in climate change is too small. I've never sat back and said that we can't control, you know, what happens in in other jurisdictions with respect to wages or with respect to other things, where businesses could choose to change sides of the region and move to a different region because our wage is higher. No, we did what was right. So for me. Every time we make this product less attractive, we give folks an opportunity. They have an opportunity to smoke another product. Maybe that product's less desirable. Maybe it gives them that opening to quit. But if not, we are filling in the gap with what we believe is best until our federal government acts in the way that it is supposed to. So I do not feel that we are divided as a community on our own. We are being divided by a federal government that is reneged on its responsibilities, and we are being divided by corporations making billions of dollars off these products. And so, unfortunately, we'll have a divided vote tonight. And fortunately, we have folks with different opinions leaving this chamber tonight. But it is important for us to remember who really is benefiting and who's really behind this. So I will not be supporting the amendment tonight for these reasons, but it's not because of lack of respect or lack of listening to those with different perspectives here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Koinange, Councilmember Hines. All right. Thank you. Council president, I have other comments not to the amendment, but I'm going to limit these to the amendment. They I want to make sure that I make decisions here in this seat, because I inhabited only for a limited time. But I want to be as determinate and transparent as I can. And if we are interested in banning flavored nicotine products, then we should ban flavored nicotine products and not make a carve out for one flavor different than other flavors. So I will be against the amendment because it is counter to the intent, as I understand, of the bill. Thank you, counsel. Prisoner. Thank you. Councilmember Hines. Councilmember Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. I don't know if you want to go to Councilman Herndon ahead of me since I want to. I'm sorry. That's right. This is your amendment. Councilmember Herndon thinking that I'm president. Well, to my colleague, Councilman Hines, I thought this bill was about teenagers smoking, not banning flavored tobacco. I think the messaging has been has the goalpost has moved a couple of times with this. And I will just say I agree that yes. Cigar cigaret and and I don't smoke and never smoked. I wish people didn't. But I also believe that you should have that choice. As someone who has worn a uniform for the freedoms of our country, that is me personally. But sidebar there are health effects of cigarets. Absolutely. But you know what? Their health effects of premium cigars. Their health effects of hookah. So how this body has exempted those and then suddenly chosen to effect menthol. And I will not get into the argument about whether it's cultural or not, but if it's impacting one segment greater than others, we should acknowledge and have a conversation about that. And so I think people are frustrated because of the mixed messaging that this council is bringing forward with exemptions for some and not for others. And if this is about teens again, which I believe that's what this was, then I am supportive of this amendment because I believe it's consistent with other amendments we have previously in this bill. So I'll be in support. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Councilmember Herndon Council Member Cashman, you're back up and then we'll go to you, Councilmember Flynn, for the final. Thank you, Madam President. I just wanted to emphasize that as far as what my goal is, is to do everything possible to keep tobacco out of the hands of kids while not taking away items that aren't used by kids. That's that's what I want with the cigar piece, because I don't know kids walking around with those. Nasty old stogies. Like I said, my father smoked them all my life. I wouldn't go near one no. Inches. So that that's just my point on that. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Cashman. Councilmember Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. I just want to make it clear on the record that that the tobacco industry is not the only lobbyist here, that this is part of a national campaign by Bloomberg Philanthropies to eradicate vaping and e-cigarettes. And they've they announced about two years ago that they would go on this campaign. We have the lobbyists from that that side here also. So it's not David versus Goliath. It's Goliath versus Goliath. And it comes into cities all around the country. And I think Bloomberg, the news report I saw was he put $160 million into this effort two years ago. So I just want to make sure everybody knew that this is there are lobbyists, well-funded on both sides here. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Flynn, Councilmember Ortega. Thank you, Madam President. Nobody is on this council. It was here when the youth from West High School came into this chambers, and along this wall here lined up all the different products, the chemicals and carcinogens that are in tobacco. And they pleaded with the city council at that time to bring forward legislation that banned the placement of products, as well as the outdoor advertising that specifically targeted communities of color, both black and Hispanic communities. And that was then followed by those same students going to Washington when R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco giants were brought before Congress . And there were memos that were produced that were that showed that young people were being targeted and they were expected to be long term consumers of tobacco products. That was over 20 years ago. And we're still having the same conversation in these chambers. And the focus has always been protecting health. We start with protecting youth, and they no longer become the lifelong consumers that the tobacco industry relies upon. And they knew that if they continued to find other ways to target youth. That's exactly what we're experiencing today. It's different types of products, but with the same the same type of addictive components that are designed to create those consumers that will continue to come back over and over again buying the same products. So I am not supportive of this or any of the other amendments tonight. I'll make my comments now on the entire bill. But the focus has always been protecting the health of our community, starting with our kids. And if we can protect our kids at the same time, we're protecting adults. I understand people want to have that choice as an adult, but adults do have the ability to order their product online or to go across a county line. But in Denver, we have always been unafraid of taking the lead, just like we did on the 16th Street Mall when we stopped the tobacco industry from distributing free tobacco , free, free samples of cigarets and cigars. We stopped the ban of advertising at our National Western Stock Show in other venues owned by the city when there were concerts and other things being held. And this is another opportunity for us to look at how we protect our youth and at the same time is protecting our adults who have been historically targeted. Going back to the 1990s, when the tobacco industry admitted before Congress that they were targeting kids to be their lifelong customers. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Ortega. And not seeing anybody else in the queue. I'll go ahead and share my comments on the menthol on the menthol exemption. And I think as everybody up here and as you sitting out here and thank you again for your patience tonight. I've gone back and forth. I mean, I would love if people weren't addicted to nicotine. I would love if folks weren't addicted to flavored vape. There's a lot that goes into what makes up addiction. I think we've seen pretty clearly that by removing something doesn't cure somebody's addiction. And it was troubling to me where we were exempting, you know, the natural cigars. And I think we've heard tonight and through your emails, there's a whole population of folks who are menthol smokers. And by trying to roll menthol into this bill. Are we going to accomplish our goal at the end of the day? And I went back and watched the first committee meeting, and it was around reducing the access for youth in vaping. That was the intent. And I think in a lot of ways well intentioned, it has morphed in a different way and. I'm frankly very concerned about the unintended consequences. But we haven't fully explored and dug into as a council when we're trying to take action on something that would only affect the city and county of Denver. There is nothing in this legislation that would stop somebody from going to Aurora or Commerce City and buying menthol cigarets and selling them in a park in Denver. And I mean, you know, there's maybe different restrictions that we could create, but we're really trying to change the the end outcome. Instead of going to the manufacturers instead of going to the powers that be to hold them accountable or to help people in addiction recovery and not have to spend their dime on these products that we know have been strategically and very intentionally marketed to certain communities. And so I am in support of this amendment tonight because, again, if we're exempting natural cigars, if we're exempting hookah, I want to make sure that we're being equitable and then we're not creating a system that has really deep unintended consequences . And so I will be supportive of this First Amendment tonight. Madam Secretary, roll call on the amendment to Council Bill 1182, please phone. I know. Cashman. Right. Kenny Ortega. Sandoval. No. Sawyer. No. Torres. No. Black. Hi, CdeBaca. No. Clark, I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, closed the voting and announced results. Eight nays. Five Eyes. Eight nays, five eyes. Council Bill 1182. The amendment has failed this evening. Councilmember Black. Your motion to amend. I move that council bill 21 dash 1180 to be amended in the following particulars on page three Line 24 Add Specialty Retail Tobacco Store means a business operating as a tobacco business as defined in c r s 25 Dash 14 Dash 203 18 that sells, gives, delivers or furnishes tobacco products to a user or consumer and prohibits under the age of 21 from entering or being present in the store. Unless the individual enters solely for the purpose of providing a service to the specialty retail tobacco store, including making a delivery three letter, subsequent subsections and on page four after line 24, insert online three flavored. Tobacco products sold in specialty retail tobacco stores. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Black. It has been moved. And second to questions or comments by members of Council on the Second Amendment. Councilmember Black. Thank you, Madam President. This amendment exempts bait shops and tobacco stores from the flavor ban, but requires them to be treated like marijuana stores, meaning that one has to be 21 years or older even to enter the store. We have 21 small businesses in Denver. Some of you are here tonight that are vape shops. And we have heard from the sponsor and from others that kids don't actually use these large tank open vaping device. That are sold in those stores. And they also sell liquids that have nicotine and some don't have nicotine, but these are not products that kids use. Without this amendment, if this bill passes, these stores will likely shut their doors. And I know many of you have leases, you have bills to pay, you have outstanding debts, and you have employees. And so I think if we allowed you to stay in business, I think that as your council members up here, that that we should not shut you down, especially when this. Bill is about kids. And it's about smoking and what you are selling. You're not selling it to kids and people are not smoking. So that is why I am proposing this. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Black. I don't see any other folks in the queue. I knew as soon as I said it, we'd get a few. Council member Sawyer. Thanks, Madam President. I absolutely appreciate why this recommendation and amendment is coming forward. I understand why there are council members who support it. We have seen in other cities that this legislation doesn't work. We know that reducing access to these products reduces usage by a few because 40% currently of our retail stores are selling to minors. But in addition. Excuse me, I am speaking. You had your turn. Please allow me to play away. Please, please. Let's allow folks to use their time. We waited and heard from everybody. Go ahead, Councilmember. Thank you. So if 40% of our retail stores on in the current round of checking by age are selling to minors. And then we know that the second most popular place that minors get these products are from 21 year old to purchase it for them, whether it's a family member or a friend, whether it is someone that they hands that cash to, that goes into the store and buys it for them and then hands it to them. That is how our kids are getting these products. Those are the two largest ways in the city and county of Denver that our kids are getting these products. And so a 21 plus amendment is not going to achieve the goal we're trying to achieve, which is to stop tobacco and vaping usage in kids under the age of 21. And so that's why I'm not supportive of this amendment. That's why we have put a an annual reporting requirement into the bill so that enforcement will have to come to council once a year to report to us on the effectiveness of this, so that if in the future we need to make changes, we can. But we know kids are going to access these products, whether it's because they're getting given the products by someone who is an adult and purchasing them legally, or whether they are going to a store that they know is non-compliant and they're buying them on their own. And if the goal here is to stop youth vaping and tobacco product usage, then this amendment undermines that goal and I cannot support it. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Sawyer. And just a reminder to folks, I know it's getting late in the evening, but the more than I have to remind you then, the more we hear from folks and the longer it takes us. And I'm sure you all want to get home here at some point. So, Councilmember Clark, you're up next. Thank you, council president. First, I want to thank the sponsors of this bill for taking so much time and really digging into this. I know it's easy for me to sit here and play armchair quarterback and say, hey, I would have done it this way, but I want to acknowledge that I did not take this on. I'm not leading on this and you all are. And so I really appreciate the work and the effort, and I want to be clear about that. That being said, had I had I had my my way. You know, I think we have a lot of holes in how tobacco is managed and regulated in our city. I huge. And I think that this has put a spotlight on that. And I hope that this is, you know, as much as I love late night city council, I hope this is not the end of how we continue to tackle tobacco. I would have started on the other end where I really feel like we should have gone after stricter licensing, stricter enforcement. Really tackle that piece first and see what results we get. With that we have, that is how our marijuana system is set up. And if we can do that with marijuana, I believe that we could do that with tobacco instead of coming at this this this way. Right. But that again, I didn't take this on. I didn't I didn't write it. And and I appreciate the work that went into it. I do think that this amendment gets us a little closer, that it still doesn't do the work that we need to do around licensing and around enforcement and around ID checking and the things that are in place for marijuana and the fines. I was you know, it was shocking to hear the difference in fines between selling to someone underage for marijuana and for tobacco. Those are gaping holes that we need to fix. I think how do we fix those first? And we can really look at this issue and what the right thing is. But I do believe that this amendment takes us back and starts to address some of that and gives us the space to come back and come and hit on those harder things. So for that reason, I think that this is a really good amendment. I am very supportive of this. I struggle with the bill as a whole without this. And so it is my hope that this passes because I really I do. Want to be a yes on this bill. And I think that this is that piece that really for me allows me to really fully get there. So I'm really hoping that this this one comes together and I am supportive of this one. Thank you. Council President. Thank you. Councilmember Clark. Councilmember Cashman. Yeah, thank you, Madam President. I have I've struggle with I've spoken with the sponsors. I struggle with with the bill overall in that, as I said, I don't I want to limit the collateral damage from keeping tobacco away from kids, I think. The ideal. I think Councilman Clark and I are on a similar page to the ideal situation, which would be a 21 and over there works that would have something to do with enhanced verification. Increased Penalties for selling to minors. I have no sympathy to anyone who sells to a minor. Increased licensing fees to fund inspectors for a Department of Public Health and Environment. And perhaps additional licenses so we can get into what is a tobacco store as opposed to, you know, the convenience store at your local gas station, all that type of stuff. This amendment doesn't do that. What what I'll be bringing forward next is an amendment to delay the date of effectiveness if the bill as it moves forward and passes. If this amendment passes, it would give time to tweak that and tighten it up to where it might actually be effective. If if it doesn't pass, it gives. And if the bill ultimately goes as is councilmembers, Sawyer and Ortega have presented it gives businesses additional time to reassess their their business model, to deal with leases and so on that have to be dealt with. Now, I continue to be concerned about the collateral damage. Thank you, Councilman Cashman. Councilman Flynn. And thank you, Madam President. I support this amendment for several reasons, not least of all, is the situation that council president brought up. The fact that we are are in the middle of a huge metropolitan area and that access to any of these products, if none of these stores in Denver can survive. This is quite my my district in southwest Denver borders seven other jurisdictions, all within most likely walking distance in most cases from many of my many of my residents. So not allowing this exemption and saying that we are going to prohibit all sales to willing adults who want to choose to buy these things. It's sort of like prohibiting or banning the presence of water in the middle of a bathtub. I mean, I could lift a bottle, a bucket of water out of a bathtub, but it's going to fill in again from the sides. And so I think that this is a way to more effectively control to the council. And Cashman's point are Councilwoman Black and I are discussing an amendment to the tobacco ordinance that would increase fines for sales to minors, including revocation of licenses by all sellers, not just not just the folks represented here, but by convenience stores and by King Soopers and Safeway and everyone else. Greatly enhance those penalties, frankly, because I wish that No. One, I wish that no one smoked. But I see this amendment as providing a a much more equitable and fair way to to establish the to continue the fight against youth vaping and and smoking by having a system where adults can go in and get them because they'll be able to get them in Englewood or Lakewood or. Madam President, your district in Commerce City or Aurora, as you mentioned. But stiffen the penalties and stiffen the fines so that they have they have their entire business at stake if they if they mess up. So I would support this amendment, Madam President. Thank you. Councilmember Flynn. Councilmember Black, we had you speak to explain the the amendment. Is it okay if I go to Councilmember Hines first? Okay. Councilmember Hines, go ahead. All right. Thank you, council president. First of all, I want to say thank you to my colleague from Park Hill. I tried too hard to limit my comments just to the amendment. And so it's totally a fair, fair comment about why are we here. So I apologize for that. The the main reason why I wanted to ask about the FDA decision in 2009 is, is because they they put the industry on notice federally and back then and. I agree with Councilmember CNOOC's comment about, boy, it would be great if we tackled this from a federal level, but we're we're moving too slowly as from the federal level. We've got the the comments from 2009. We have a process to create authorized devices through the FDA. And I believe that there are products that are underway right now. And and I would encourage people to if you want to if you want to sell a product that FDA knows way more about , making sure that we have appropriate products out there then than what the city of Denver can can do. Our FDA has way more resources than than the city of Denver does. And so while I would love for this to be a national topic that's tackled nationally, we in the city of Denver have to do something to protect our public health, safety and welfare. And that is a core charge of what a city does. So I, I won't be supporting this amendment either, predominantly because I want to make sure that that we do this the right way. Thank you. Council President. Thank you. Councilmember Hines. Councilmember Black. Thank you, Madam President. I was just going to remind everyone which Councilman Flynn already did that. Councilman Flynn and I have been talking to many of you about a separate bill that would increase penalties for businesses that sell to people under 21. So I think we've talked to most of you, but we will we will be back with that. And then I also just wanted to remind everyone that this exemption is really about these small vape shops and the products that they sell are not the products that that kids are using. They're not those small, discrete projects of products. So when you're voting, just please remember that. Thank you, Councilmember Black. And I've learned a lot more about vaping than I ever knew before. And it's been a huge education. And, you know, these are specialty tobacco retailers who are 21 and over. We've got plenty of liquor stores all over the city that are 21 and older. And we know that young people get access to alcohol as well. But we're not looking at. Banning them from our city, that that's not the intent. And so I'm going to be a yes on this amendment tonight, because I've heard from many businesses that they would go out of business. And these are businesses that are employing individuals who are city and county of Denver, residents who are, you know, spending their paycheck in our city. They're residing in our city. And to do something that, again, I think has unintended consequences, that we're not looking at a regional approach for this. And so, again, we're creating a patchwork of legislation and we're creating issues, I think, for these small businesses. But then also. Just somebody being able to go to Aurora or Commerce City. I just can't believe that other municipalities are going to follow suit on this. We're going to really need some action at the state level or where we can make sure that the fines are a place where, you know, we're going to put these folks out of business that aren't going to comply with the regulations that are, you know, that they have to comply with. So I will be in favor of the Second Amendment. Madam Secretary, roll call on the Second Amendment to Council Bill 1182, please. Black. I see. Tobacco pass. Clark. I. Flynn. I. Herndon. Hines. No. Carson. No. Cliques, no. Ortega No. Sandoval No. Sawyer No. Torres. No. CdeBaca. I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, close the voting and announced results. Seven days. Six and. Seven days. Six eyes. Council Bill 1182. The amendment has passed. So we've got that one passed. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We've been doing this a long time. It failed. I am so sorry. So sorry. It's been up here a long time, so. Got it. That one has failed as well. Councilmember Cashman, we are to the Third Amendment tonight. Would you please make the motion to amend. The Council bill to. I don't think your speaker's. Mike is on, sir. And those who are pearls, so to speak, in there. I move the council bill 21, dash 1180 to be amended in the following particulars. One on page six Line 15 Strike July one, 2022 and replace with July one, 2023. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded questions or comments by members of Council on the Third Amendment. Councilman Cashman. Yes, Madam President. And as I said, if the bill passes and will impact a number of stores in our community and I think an implementation date of July one of 2022 is is two too quick and doesn't give people adequate time to react. I was in a position a number of years ago where changes in my industry took place and fortunately had a little bit more time to plan my next move. So I would hope my colleagues could support this. Thank you, Councilmember Cashman. Councilmember Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. I think this is a fair amendment. If, in light of the failure of the prior two amendments, we basically just gave a death sentence to the businesses that are sitting out here. I think it's only fair that we give them more than six months to deal with whatever the fallout is should the bill pass. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Flynn. Councilmember Sawyer. Thanks, Madam President. I have been thinking about this all afternoon since I learned about it this afternoon, and I do think it is a hard one. The reason that we chose the implementation date of July 1st of 2022 was to give at the very least. And remember, we started this conversation with one committee that we went to with multiple meetings, but then one committee that we went to on October six. Right, it's now November 20, I don't know, nine, eight, something like the 29th. So, you know, by now that bill would have already passed if it were going to pass, except that we extended committee to extra times. So while I understand the impetus to extend the date for implementation, I'm curious how many kids are going to get addicted to cigarets and vaping during that extra year? I'm curious how how businesses that have known since 2009 that the FDA was going to move to pull these products from the shelves. Are asking for one more year to make more money before they if they are going to close. Close. And frankly, when I spoke to the mayor of Colorado Springs I'm sorry, not Colorado Springs. Glenwood Springs, when they implemented this law, they have not seen a single store closed. There were two that left voluntarily before it went into effect. But in Glenwood Springs, where this business exists or where this law exists, they have seen zero businesses close up to this point. So while I understand the impetus to want to extend the period of time for the bill. She has told me that if this bill passes, they will execute it and begin enforcing it on July 1st, 2022. That's enough time to inform businesses. And so I am not going to be supportive of this tonight. Thanks. Thank you. Councilmember Sawyer. And seeing no one else in the queue, I'll go ahead and comment. I want to try to give businesses a little bit more time to figure out what the next steps might be. And so I will be in support of this amendment tonight. Madam Secretary, roll call on the Third Amendment to Council Bill 1182, please. Cashman, I. Can eat? No. Ortega No. Sandoval. No. Sawyer. No. Torres. I black. I see tobacco. I. Clark. I Flynn. High. Herndon. No. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce the results. Five names, eight eyes. Eight Council Bill 1182 has been amended. Councilmember Ortega, would you please put Council Bill 21, dash 1182 on the floor as amended? Madam President, I move that council bill 21, 82, 21, 1182 as amended, be placed on the fourth floor and do this working tonight. Sorry to be published as amended. Yes. Wonderful. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded. Comments by members of Council on Council Bill 21, Dash 1182 as amended. Councilmember Sawyer Thanks, Madam President. I want to thank everyone who has come out tonight, everyone who has come out every single time for the last six months, eight months that we have been talking about this bill. I want to thank you all for the conversation. This is difficult conversation, but it's important conversations to have. Obviously, I'm still supportive of this bill. The process has occurred and more than seven council members said that they want to extend the time to July 1st, 2023. Great. I'm still hugely supportive of this bill. I disagree, but I always say we can disagree without being disagreeable. And I think that that is a very important point to take home today. So I am still very supportive and very happy with this bill being implemented on July 1st, 2023. I am so thankful to everyone who helped us go through the process of this. There is not a single, you know, person who can say that we didn't do our job and we're not fair and ears open and had thorough conversation about a lot of different potential options with an issue, with a lot of different moving parts and very, very passionate opinions on all sides. So thank you to the entire community who is here tonight and has sent us emails, participated in town halls, had these discussions, lobbied. I really appreciate it. I'm I would ask my council, my fellow council members to respect the process as well. And who supports publishing this bill tonight and approving it next week? Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Sawyer, Councilmember Sandoval. Thank you, Madam President. I just wanted to thank Dr. Terry in the back. Your comments were struck home to me tonight. And as a doctor, I have asked several of my nurse friends and sometimes I get stuck in politics and politics are messy. And so sometimes I have to go outside of my circle and go to doctors. And I just want to thank you for your service and think all the industry of doctors right now, because the pandemic has been hard. And not only has it been hard on you, it's been hard on your families, and it's been hard on everyone. And the smoking epidemic has been four years hard. And so I just want to thank all of our doctors and our health care professionals who came out to give us information. And in a time where the United States is so divided, whether you're vaccinated or not vaccinated, I think our council president had to remind this chamber five times tonight that the city and county of Denver had a mask mandate on five times. I've never heard that before in ever. Sitting here, people just put the mask on. But we're divided over so many certain things. And I just want to say that although I may not have voted the way you may liked, I do stand in solidarity with all of us during this really challenging time as we go into the solstice. Some dark days, literally dark days. The sunset at 430 tonight and our meeting started at five. So we've been here in the dark. And although I may not have voted the way you felt I should have or the way that I was reflective of your representation, I just want you to know that I do respect all of you as humans and all we mankind has gone through in the past year and a half. And I just had to call out Dr. Perry, because thank you so much for your comments. They helped me stay steadfast in my decision to. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilmember Sandoval. Councilmember Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. I want to. Hearken back to the next to the penultimate speaker here, or the first speaker, rather. Councilwoman Sawyer. She is exactly right that this is how we legislate and we can disagree on things, as Councilwoman Sawyer said, without being disagreeable. As a matter of fact, although we have opposed each other on aspects of this bill, Councilwoman Sawyer and I are working together with Councilwoman Black on another project, and that's how the process is supposed to work, and I respect that. The other co-sponsor of this bill sits to my left here. Councilwoman Ortega. Councilwoman Ortega and I have been acquainted very favorably for nearly four decades now, and I have complete respect for her as well through this process, even though we don't agree on this bill. And so having said all that, Madam President, I will vote in favor of publishing the bill and moving it forward to a final passage and and look forward to the resolution of it. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Flynn. Councilmember Black. Thanks, Madam President. Just for those of you who aren't familiar with the process of the city council tonight, we are just voting to publish the bill. So the final vote won't be til next week. And we almost always vote to publish the bill. And so I will be voting to publish the bill, but I will not be voting in favor of the bill next week. But I just wanted to explain to you. Why I. Would be voting yes tonight. And we usually have the hearing and all the comments on the the second reading on for the final vote. But because we've had so much tonight, I'm going to say my piece tonight and then I'm not going to say anything next week and I'm going to repeat some of the things I said the whole time. But. I believe. I believe in them. So anyway, we all agree that kids should not use tobacco, and we all agree that smoking is bad and kills people. However, this is not a good policy from the public health angle because it will not prevent people from smoking and it will not prevent kids from getting vaping products. As we've all said, people can get them and online they can get them in our neighboring cities. And then, of course, unflavored products are still available in Denver. So it's not going to prevent anyone from using the products. We've also learned that some people actually use vaping products to stop smoking. And so why would we take that option away from people who are trying to quit? We've also heard tonight this is very paternalistic. Why should 13 of us here tell someone who is an adult what they can and cannot buy, that they can buy a pack of camels, but they can't buy menthol, or they can go buy a wide variety of marijuana products or alcohol products. But for some reason, we're not going to let them have that. Skoal chewing tobacco. I've already made the point that it's it's a bad policy for small businesses. And I'm very sorry. For all of you. I think it's terrible what is going to happen to your businesses. Some people have talked about sending a message. I don't think sending a message is a good policy when it doesn't achieve the desired outcome, which is preventing kids and adults from smoking. It to send a message at the expense of these businesses, I don't think is good policy if if the goal is a state or national prohibition. Prohibition doesn't work. We had national prohibition of alcohol. It did not work. The unintended consequences were a black market and a rise of organized crime. It did not end the production of alcohol or the consumption of alcohol. Marijuana was prohibited for many years. Everyone could get their hands on marijuana, which is why we have legalized it so our way. Everything you said tonight, I agree with. We do know what works in reducing smoking and its education. Fewer people smoke today when they than they did 30 years ago. And we have way more people in our country. So we need to invest more in education. And several people up here tonight talked about, I think, Clark and Councilman Cashman about looking at this from a different angle. What is the problem? And let's dig in and find some other solutions that will actually prevent kids from getting their hands on it and. Get adults. The help that they need. So, as I said, Councilman Flynn and I are working on something about for increased penalties. I do think we need to look to the FDA. To ban products. And I would love to talk with some of you about some of your ideas. So our way, I think you're tired, but you need to you need to send your ideas our way. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Black. Councilmember Ortega. Thank you, Madam President. I also want to express my appreciation to everybody who has not only been here tonight, but has reached out throughout this timeframe on all sides of this issue. I think we all learned a little bit more about the industry through this this process. But I want to say a special thank you to my colleague, Councilwoman Sawyer, who did the heavy lifting in. Bringing. This legislation forward and to the team of people that worked with both of us on trying to craft something that we thought would get us there. Obviously, through the process of going through multiple committees, I was not really supportive of either of the two amendments that were passed, but we're trying to find a way to ensure that we had legislation that didn't completely gut the entirety of what we were trying to do, and the two amendments tonight would have done that. So I appreciate the fact that we have a bill that will move forward that still retains the basic elements of moving towards protecting our youth, while at the same time, I believe protect our adults as well. Interestingly. When we had the CIA great hall contract come forward. 34 year contract, multimillion dollars, one pass through committee. And this has been to committee on multiple, multiple occasions. So it just shows you like the interests that we had in this issue. And I think the fact that there were lobbyists on all sides of this issue also brought out a lot of interest as well. I look forward to seeing a new language that would be brought forward that deals with enhanced penalties and and stricter enforcement so that we continue to not see these products in the hands of our kids. I think, again, we started with the health of our kids. But at the same time, in what we're doing, I think it protects adults as well. So thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Councilmember Ortega, Councilmember Clark. Thank you. The President. Well, I am certainly disappointed that tonight that we weren't able to use a little bit more of a scalpel to really get at, you know, kids versus adults and and allowing adults to make decisions for themselves even when we don't like those decisions. It's disappointing that I just want to echo again a thanks to the bill's sponsors. And, you know, we saw amendments tonight. There were also amendments that the sponsors did include from all of that committee work and spent a lot of time with me personally. I know with other members of council and with the body and really taking time with all of us to hear us and to again say these are the things that we're willing to and honestly, that the the body is willing to amend and not amend. And so I just really appreciate that. I echo what others said that I believe that lots of hard work and with our process that there's definitely deserves to be published. And yet on the second reading, I will personally be grappling with that lack of finding that right scalpel for the 21 and up between now and then. But I but I will be voting tonight to publish it and take that decision on to second reading. So thank you, council president. Thank you. Councilmember Clark. Councilmember Herndon. Thank you, Madam President. I'm out of town next week, so I'm as vote no tonight and I'm going to say why. Here's my problem. What this was about initially is not where we got to. And Councilman Ortega just just kind of said that it protects the bill as well. This was never about protecting adults, as we said. This was in the spirit of protecting our youth, which as the father of a 17 year old daughter and a six year old son, I absolutely agree. And I do not believe that this bill will prevent any youth in Denver from not smoking or having access. Every neighborhood I represent Park Hills, Central Park, Montebello, East Colfax. They all touch another community. All of our districts minus one. My colleague to my right borders a neighboring municipality. A student in all of our districts, I imagine, can get somewhere out of the city and county of Denver in about 10 minutes. So the idea that this bill is going to prevent that, I just believe is a fallacy. And I wish in that the the the lobbying efforts for this. The idea that is, I feel has come across as disingenuous because it's not about kids. If you have a bigger agenda that I want to make this tobacco free, just say that so we can have a conversation about those merits. Don't cloud it with this is about the kids when it's not it's illegal right now. By the way, if you're under 20 to smoke flavored tobacco, let's just enforce the laws. I think you can also make sure. Thank you, Councilman Clark, for the scalpel, because that's what we should be doing. This is a sledgehammer. We're adding the law on top of the law. One law doesn't work with. Create another. Let's find out how we can fix our laws. That's the way that we should and want to make important policy for that. And I appreciate Dr. Richardson and I say, Dr. Rosen, I know you as Terry, but you are not doctors. Right. So I was gonna say I love you disagree on this one, but I appreciate all that you do. And you know that that we disagree on that. So let's let's do that. Let's have that conversation. And I just this is and I will throw out this last anecdotal thing. No, I told you about my 17 year old daughter when this conversation started a long time ago. I can't even remember. But I pulled her aside. One day I was like, Hey, you know, friends that vape. She's like, Of course. And I said, Why do they vape? And she listed off a bunch of different reasons. And then I looked at her. I said, Do they do it because of the flavor? And she looked at me, she said, no. And I just thought that was interesting. Speaking to a 17 year old senior who we want to talk about, this is who we are impacting. This is just one conversation. But I thought that was I thought that that was very telling. And I asked you right there, sir, I agree with you and any ways that I can help you as well as continue to do so. But let's like let's make meaningful policy. Let's stop our kids from doing it. And unfortunately, I don't believe this is going to do it. So can't vote no next week, but vote no this week. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Councilmember Herndon and I will go ahead and make my comments so we don't have to belabor it next week either. I have struggled with this clearly, and it's been helpful to hear the intent of the co-sponsors, council members Sawyer and Ortega. I really thank them for taking up this topic. I would have liked to, like Councilman Clarke, seen us move towards the regulatory side of it so that we're going after the bad actors and penalizing them for that. And I think this is an opportunity for us now as a council to have an honest conversation about what addiction really is and what are those mechanisms through legislation, if there are any, to help and support people in the path to recovery versus creating patchwork legislation that we're hopeful that other municipalities might pick up. But we're not assured of that. And all the while, creating more hardship for the city and county of Denver residents that want to acquire these products legally and again, go after the bad actors. And so I will vote in favor of it tonight to have it ordered published. I'm still struggling as to where I will be on my final vote next week on it. But I again thank the public for being here with us, staying with us, those online, following us. You all got to see a little demonstration of my dyslexia tonight as well. I'm glad I've got a lot of good crew up here that helps out with that. But I appreciated the conversation and Mr. Way Art, I think what you said was spot on and I really look forward to figuring out how we can do better around this topic going forward and not creating that patchwork. Madam Secretary, roll call on Council Bill 1182 as amended, please. Ortega. I. Sawyer. I. Sandoval. I. Torres. I. Black. CdeBaca. I. Clerk. Flynn. I. Herndon. Hinds. All right. Cashman. Can I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. One May 12. 512 Eyes Council Bill 21 Dash 1182 has been ordered published as amended there being no further business before this body. The meeting is adjourned.