Regarding the Vallejo Tobacco Retail License I’ve been working on for two years, our coalition had numerous opportunities to speak at a community workshop with tobacco retailers. As you can see in the video it sometimes got heated, but everyone remained civil. I had an opportunity to stand up numerous times and give my point of view on the work we’ve done with this, particularly since I’m a resident and all my activism in this area is as a volunteer.

The two issues the retailers supposedly had were pack size and transferability, and they obviously weren’t amenable to my repeated suggestion of foregoing their opportunity to transfer the business as a penalty for violating the already existing law of selling to minors.  Because it wasn’t a hill they were willing to die on, I don’t see why we need to negotiate the ABC model for liquor.  The liquor model doesn’t scare them much.  Suspension of even one month (and forfeiture of the poison product, which was listed) scares them.  The false equivalency of tobacco and alcohol was what got me most frustrated last night, but I did find the retailers at our table to be cordial.  They admitted they had lost members of their own families to cancer, presumably from smoking.

That being said, I find it hypocritical that retailers swear they don’t sell to minors and yet they want “a break” in case it happens.  The retailers at my table voluntarily admitted they were already caught selling liquor to minors and were punished for it.  When pushed by me they claimed they could not swear their stores would not accidentally sell tobacco to minors, which means they have historically been laissez-faire about checking identification.  That translates to me that they aren’t all the good guys they were purporting to be.

The audacity that retailers claimed THEY are the best judges of how much addiction is going on in the community is absolutely absurd and based on nothing concrete.  Those claiming they were the best “experts” on that didn’t want to hear about what kind of empirical evidence actually improved the outcomes of the tobacco scourge in other jurisdictions.

All the talk about the black market was also a red herring.  Anyone who resorts to saying someone else is breaking the law as a reason not to try to create an enforcement of a law already on the books, has already lost the argument to me and is not worth sparring with.  Someone even had the guts to imply that they would be subject to more armed robberies if we increased the price, as if tobacco products are worth their weight in gold.

I stand by the ordinance as it was modeled after the Public Health Law Center. TRL’s already exist in well over 200 jurisdictions in California alone, including next door in Benicia, not to mention other states.

Despite the laws being on the books for a dozen years that there is to be no smoking at resorts within 25 feet of a window, pool or door, the smoking is rampant again this year. Last year there was an effort at the entrance to every event because I worked with the Sonoma County Department of Health to put the resorts and bars on notice. This year there’s some signage, but I was literally told by the manager of West Sonoma Inn that *I* should talk to the DJ about making an announcement because the shitty temporary signs that they have at the West Sonoma Inn (shown below) which are BARELY visible were not enough to stem the rampant smoking around large groups of gay men, many of which we know to be statistically immuno-compromised. After Covid and MPOX, one would think that this event, Lazybear, which was found specifically to raise money for AIDS and gay men’s health, would be a little more conscious.

These recently extinguished combustible cigarette butts in a dry FIELD say nothing of the plethora of vape devices that were used.

Only the signage of the feckless manager’s office at WSI seems to be permanent, while the signage for the event is so shitty and temporary as to imply that the law is not in effect year-round!

As you can see, there is no enforcement with the recently extinguished cigarette butts in a dry field while wildfires are raging all over northern California.

What could possibly go wrong?

This is an extraction of my comments:

There were many great speakers on my site which you can review at this link:

https://vallejoca.portal.civicclerk.com/event/2768/media

I’m very proud that I got to meet with my State Assemblymember Lori Wilson with a coalition that worked with the American Heart Association to talk about commercial tobacco in District 11. We also met with a representative from State Senator Bill Todd’s representative on the same subject. It’s so important that we acknowledge that tobacco is legally peddled POISON that becomes the leading cause of premature death in the United States and that our kids are still being addicted with the industry’s targeting. Where is the outrage? Our future generations will look back and ask.

Lori Wilson meeting (best photo):

State Senator Bill Todd staff meeting: