In a dramatic roller-coaster of a night, what should have been quite routine, a second reading of the ordinance, became chaos, when a last-minute vote struck it down due to some requests for what amount to minor changes on the part of the tobacco retailers. Fortunately, the lawyers on the council were able to save the day and a motion was made to bring back the item for a vote that same night and it passed. There are crumbling about some amendments that might be made, but the two years of work were not for naught. This was as good a xmas gift as I could hope for due to the sweat equity so many of us on our coalition put into this ordinance. I did not speak because it was unclear that I needed to, and by the time I left, I was miffed that it did not pass.

A fury of communications ensued after my colleagues and I departed from City Hall. To my glee, I got the good news that Vallejo youth will now be protected as the second jurisdiction in Solano County, the largest city jurisdiction in Solano County, and one of the recorded worst jurisdictions in the Bay Area in some years for youth tobacco sales. Here are the relevant parts of the TRL drama from this evening, on what was otherwise a very long night:

Here’s a video of my last attempt to remotely convince the Oakland City Council that their Smokefree Multi-Unit Housing ordinance was pathetic. I’m so glad Vallejo at least did it right, without a smoking of cannabis exemption. It’s so short-sighted not to protect all residents of multi-unit housing from second-hand smoke. At least the ordinance improved the lives of bar employees and bar patrons who wish to enjoy fresh air on bar patios.

Here’s the text of what I said (including what got cut off):

“I’m here as a volunteer member of the Alameda County Tobacco Control Coalition speaking on item 5.5. It’s really disappointing that an exception was made for cannabis SMOKING in the attempt to pass a smokefree multi unit housing ordinance.  How many times did the doctors and experts without a cannabis lobby agenda have to testify in front of the Oakland City Council that there are a plethora of ways to ingest cannabis that does NOT affect the immune-compromised and otherwise vulnerable neighbors who don’t want smoke wafting into their windows, electric plugs and residential patios?  Whose interest is being protected when the Oakland city council only concentrates on the cannabis lobby talking points and not the health of citizens who almost never have the means to pick up and move because they are tormented by the lack of fresh air in their own homes?  Medicinal or not, there is no MANDATE that cannabis be smoked even though that has been normalized, and this aspect of the smoke-free policy for Oakland is now just another unenforceable piece of paper posing as an ordinance.  I encourage you to revisit this flawed logic.  There is no doctor who can honestly say that the healthiest way to ingest cannabis is through particulates entering the lungs. At the same time, at least you got the smoke-free bar patios portion of the ordinance right.  For that, I thank the council on behalf of Oakland bar employees and patrons that want fresh air while working or outside consuming drinks. Thank you.”

Here is the entire video of the Consent Item’s public comments. In Oakland they combine all consent item comments at the same time, so some of them are not germane to the 5.5 ordinance on Smokefree Multi-Unit Housing and Bar Patios:

I spoke on the consent item with Vallejo receiving about $930,000 in California Department of Justice funds to facilitate the forthcoming Tobacco Retail License.

I also spoke on the action item regarding the first reading of the TRL.

While it isn’t the most robust TRL I had hoped for, finally MY CITY and a second jurisdiction in Solano County (the largest city by far) has now started the process of addressing the historically high commercial tobacco youth sales rates that had no enforcement. This TRL will reduce blights and food deserts, and facilitate far fewer youth from becoming addicts who will die miserably after suffering from tobacco-related illness.

I spoke on the consent calendar and the specific action calendar item with many colleagues and amazing Vallejo youth (some as young as 13). The hashing out of some of the details by the council was frustrating, but at least it’s a pretty strong TRL. The one-time seven-year grace period with which to sell the businesses with the tobacco license exemption to strangers is at least a date certain (January 1, 2032). Still, the licenses to sell to close family members are in perpetuity, unfortunately. Still, we should be able to chip away at the 100 retailers and get it down to the goal of under 50, depending on the population of Vallejo at that time.

I’m very disappointed at the lack of understanding of the penalty structure by most city council members. More years during which time to accumulate the penalties is actually better for enforcement. Still, the council decided only to make the retailers forego the privilege of transferring the license if they are caught three times in one year. Without even ONE mandated check on businesses per year, and all the whining about the lack of resources and the challenges of hiring a coalition partner like Bay Area Community Resources, the odds of any of these bad actor retailers getting caught three times in a year before the tabulation resets is extremely unlikely. We’d have to have the efficiency of the best surgeon to accomplish that kind of monitoring of a single retailer.

I’m very pleased to report that Vallejo received one of the highest awards in the state of $931,758 from the California Department of Justice to “fund tobacco retailer inspections, minor decoy operations, retailer and officer education on tobacco laws/ordinances, and prosecution of tobacco sales violations.” This portends well to the timing of the Tobacco Retail License that I’ve been working on with our coalition to reduce the addiction to commercial tobacco among local youth.

I called into this committee about an ordinance that is being brought to Oakland (a historical leader in non-smoker rights) on both smoke-free bar patios and smoke-free multi-unit housing, which passed in Vallejo in 2022 unanimously, thanks to the hard work of our coalition.

Here are my comments, which I had to shorten to under ninety seconds:

“I’m Joseph Hayden with LGBTQ Minus Tobacco and the Alameda County Tobacco Control Coalition. Protecting bar staff should be a given.  Staff members often must walk into patio areas of their places of employment. It is also unfair to patrons who want to breathe fresh air to have to be subjected to an uncontrolled amount of passive smoke in a confined area.  We strongly support the passage of THIS aspect of the ordinance as written. I WANT to support the adoption of a Smokefree Multi-Unit Housing Ordinance, but the burden of proof to show the type of smoke that is being forced on should NOT fall on victims who may be wheelchair-bound or otherwise immune compromised from asthma, cancer, Covid, and any number of respiratory diseases.  Smoke (which could be the CO-USE of Tobacco and cannabis) permeates through balconies, windows, and even electric sockets.  Smokeless cannabis options abound. Oakland should prioritize the protection of its citizens rather than yielding to the cannabis industry’s talking points. Many California jurisdictions, including numerous cities in the Bay Area, have already implemented smoke-free multi-unit housing without a cannabis exception because that’s the only thing that makes sense. Thank you.”

This video has all the comments from our coalition and the cannabis lobby.