California’s ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products has been placed on hold after referendum petitioners submitted more signatures than the minimum requirement of 623,212 to qualify for the November 2022 ballot.
More than 1 million signatures were submitted by the California Coalition for Fairness, which campaigned for the veto referendum to repeal Senate Bill 793 (SB 793). The law was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom last year and written to go into effect on January 1, 2021, but with the veto referendum pending signature verification, the effective date was suspended. Now that the signatures for the veto referendum were certified, the law is suspended until voters decide the issue at the election on November 8, 2022.
SB 793 bans the retail sale of flavored tobacco products including menthol and fruit flavors, as well as those used in e-cigarettes, but exempts hookah, expensive cigars and pipe tobacco, as well as flavored tobacco sold over the internet.
The California Coalition for Fairness said in a statement that it “will focus on educating voters about why this law is unfair and goes too far. We agree that youth should never have access to any tobacco products, but this can be achieved without imposing a total prohibition on products that millions of adults choose to use.”