Here are my activist colleagues Brian, Nefertiti, and a youth activist from here in Vallejo, Genesis (with whom I did the radio show last year), who showed up to comment on our frustration with the lack of Vallejo’s Tobacco Retail License getting adopted more than a year after we presented at City Council’s request.
My comments were roughly this:
Good evening Mayor and City Council. I’m Joseph Hayden, a Vallejo resident and volunteer Co-Chair of Tobacco Free Solano and LGBTQ Minus Tobacco.
Over twelve months ago our coalition, together with Vallejo youth advocates, presented to City Council a compelling case for why a Tobacco Retail License was needed most desperately in Vallejo. We are pleased that we were able to meet with city staff numerous times to discuss details and that there was an opportunity for tobacco retailers to be educated on this forthcoming ordinance. [Not a single retailer showed up. ]
Despite this bit of progress, there’s frustration that there is still no specific date for it to be on the agenda of the Planning Commission, which is where the ordinance sits before it can be read out to the City Council for the FIRST reading, something City Council was hoping to have by September of last year!
Moreover, we’re now aware, as City staff is, about the deadline for the California State Attorney General looking to assist with funding for jurisdictions that adopt tobacco retail licenses in time. I don’t want to see Vallejo miss out on these very helpful state funds, especially for a REVENUE NEUTRAL ordinance that will save lives. This is about the most preventable cause of death in the United States.
Please help us to hasten the reading of this ordinance, lest we lose momentum. Please keep the outrage alive at what has happened to our families, and continues to happen, when Peddlers of POISON try to Persuade us that they deserve the Privilege of having our youth Purchase their Products.
Keep in mind that since we first presented, other jurisdictions in Massachusetts and at least two cities in California already have stopped the sale of commercial tobacco ALTOGETHER to help save their citizens from this scourge. This is called End Game.
How many lives could have been improved and lengthened if we had already thwarted these Vallejo youth from being addicted to a toxic product that kills when used as intended, the availability of which lets them think that it’s okay to engage in self-destructive behavior? Tobacco is the most unregulated drug in the world that is still readily available to them, especially when we compare Vallejo’s underage youth sale rates to other Bay Area jurisdictions. By design, in food deserts, one only needs to extend one’s arm to find nicotine products in every direction. This is still a health equity issue. So how many shortened life spans and devastated families will know my family’s grief (and that of some of you) because of the lack of outrage at what the tobacco retailers continue to get away with? Unchecked sales and no accountability are why we need a tobacco retail license forthwith.
I ask you to think about what the inherently racist, callous and insidious industry of Big Tobacco is doing to our families. The job of our governments, including local governments, is to protect citizens. That means standing up for us no despite the unlikely threat of litigation from the industry.
Pulmonologists say that NOTHING SHOULD GO INTO OUR LUNGS (or our kids’ lungs) except AIR!
Later in the evening, my colleague Calyn Kelly called in and got the conversation re-triggered and heated, so let’s hope we hear something soon!