At last night’s Columbus City Council meeting, legislation was passed to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, citing the harmful effects on targeted communities including children and minorities. Ordinance 3253-2022 will prohibit the sale of flavored cigarettes — including menthol cigarettes — and vape products, within the City of Columbus, starting on January 1, 2024.
“In 2020, the City of Columbus and Columbus Public Health declared racism a public health crisis, and a big part of this conversation must be the acknowledgment of decades of predatory targeting of harmful tobacco products to black communities, our youth, the LGBTQ community and other at-risk populations,” stated Council Member Shayla Favor, chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, during yesterday’s meeting.
Over the past several months, City Council has hosted a number of public hearings and community input sessions, many of which were met with opposition and protests. Columbus currently has just over 860 tobacco sale licenses, which would be affected by the product ban.
“Since the beginning, I have been intentional in a lengthy engagement process, as I truly care to understand the impact this legislation could have,” continued Favor. “Tonight I can ensure that while this has not been an easy process, it has been a fair process, and I appreciate all of our residents, my colleagues, our business community and Columbus Public Health for your engagement thus far.”
The ordinance does include an exemption for on-site consumption, which primarily was created to allow the continued operation of hookah bars.
“Council heard from community groups that the practice of hookah and shisha is a cultural tradition for many ethnic groups in the city of Columbus, and we took that into consideration,” said Favor.
City Council President Shannon Hardin acknowledged during the meeting that the process has not been an easy one, and shared his own struggles with menthol cigarette addiction.
“When we lead a city of 915,000 people, I don’t think our aim as a legislative body should be to get consensus — you just can’t sometimes,” he explained. “But what we can do is create a process in which important conversations and decisions can be brought before the public, and that regardless of where you stand on the issue, you know for sure that your voice was heard and your position was considered that it was debated and deliberated by this body in a public manner.”
All seven members of Columbus City Council voted unanimously to pass the legislation.