MarinIJ: Mill Valley Moves Toward Full Nicotine Sales Ban

Mill Valley is poised to become the county’s second municipality, after Corte Madera, to ban retail sales of nicotine products and electronic smoking devices.

The City Council unanimously approved a city code update Tuesday intended to curtail nicotine use among youths.

“It’s shocking to me that our consumption here is 12 times higher than elsewhere in the state,” Councilmember Urban Carmel said after hearing University of California research centered on Tamalpais High School. “That is an epidemic that needs to be addressed.”

“It’s clear we’ve been playing whack-a-mole with an industry that keeps finding new ways to put addictive nicotine products in front of our children and young adults,” said Councilmember Katherine Jones. “Most recently, we’ve seen Zyn nicotine pouches sold in small circular plastic containers in bright colors that look like innocuous containers of candy or mints.”

Councilmember Stephen Burke said, “In our high schools, hundreds of students are being hooked. I would urge us to adopt this, work with our neighboring towns, to work with our supervisors and county staff to move this forward more quickly over the next year.”

Mill Valley has adopted a succession of anti-smoking ordinances in recent decades.

In 1992, it prohibited smoking in enclosed public spaces and workplaces, said Kelsey Rogers, deputy administrative director. In 2015, those regulations were expanded to prohibit smoking in multi-residence buildings. In 2020, the council banned the sale of flavored tobacco products at stores and pharmacies.

“More recently, Marin County Health and Human Services adopted additional tobacco regulations, including minimum pricing requirements, as well as prohibitions on electronic smoking devices and heated tobacco products,” Rogers said.

The council discussed going beyond the county’s action in March. It considered three options: mirroring the county’s latest rules; a complete ban; or a phased approach.

Testimony from high school students, local physicians, public health officials and researchers called for a complete ban in response to widespread use and rapid introduction of new products.

Trade associations representing tobacco retailers, gas stations and convenience stores wrote letters and testified in opposition to a sweeping ban.

Mill Valley has five retailers — gas stations and convenience stores — that sell nicotine products.

“I have sat here at this dais probably on 200 different nights over the last 10 years,” Carmel said, “and the single most compelling night in all of those meetings was when a young Tam student who had been a star athlete and high-performing student recounted her story about how she slowly became addicted to vaping and how it completely consumed her life to the point where she could not be anywhere without her vape.”

The teens said their peers were using coupons on social media to buy the products at a discount.

“Following the meeting, the police department investigated these concerns,” Rogers said. “MVPD conducted an operation using fictitious social media accounts and decoys. While the operation did not result in any arrests, it demonstrated some of the challenges associated with these types of sales, particularly because accounts can be quickly deleted and recreated.”

During public comments, numerous physicians and public health officials called on the city to take the strongest response.

“Prohibiting the sale of commercial tobacco products is not about telling adults what they can or cannot do,” said Dr. Sarita Satpathy, president of the San Francisco Marin Medical Society. “It is truly about preventing addiction, reducing disease, protecting children and changing the local environment that makes an inherently harmful product readily available.”

“Kids make choices within an environment,” said Liz Couch, a Mill Valley resident and adjunct professor affiliated with the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. “How available these products are, how frequently young people encounter them, and how normalized their sale is within the community are all part of the environment.”

“The whole trick about this is peer pressure,” said Mel Blaustein, a Mill Valley resident and UCSF addiction psychiatrist. “If your buddies are smoking, you’re going to be a smoker. Unfortunately, they don’t know that their health isn’t going to be good ongoing.”

Eddie Diaz, a co-owner of the Fuel 24/7 gas station and convenience store on Miller Avenue, spoke against the ban during the council meeting. Diaz said tobacco products comprise 52% of sales.

“It’s a small store … and that will really impact our sales,” he said. “The problem is those types of sales are not easily replaced for the size of the store.”

“We are part of the community,” Diaz said, saying the business has donated more than $100,000 to local schools. “We are verifying IDs for adults 21 and over.”

City Manager Todd Cusimano estimated that Mill Valley would lose upwards of $30,000 in sales tax revenues.

During their discussion, members of the council supported a full retail ban but said the city’s action needs to be part of a countywide response.

“I have witnessed the evolution of tobacco products and nicotine products as well through the experience of my own two kids,” said Vice Mayor Caroline Joachim. “It’s been a growing concern, certainly for parents here and elsewhere.”

“The county needs to pay attention to what’s going on here and follow,” Carmel said.

Joachim made the motion for instituting the full retail ban, but asked staff “to the extent practicable” to come back with information on its fiscal impacts.

Burke said the ban should take effect on Jan. 1, not April 1, as city staff proposed.

Mayor Max Perrey suggested the effective date be Feb. 1, the same date as Corte Madera’s ban.

The council agreed and unanimously endorsed the code update. It returns for final approval in October.

“I’m really proud of our council,” Perrey said. “I’m really proud of putting this on our work plan, of our staff for working diligently on this, for the police department’s involvement and for us embracing an issue that the community came forward and brought to us.”

“A lot of people in town actually really care about this,” he said.