Business

Medford and Lexington are weighing a ‘generational ban’ on tobacco sales this week, and retailers aren’t happy

The towns are following the footsteps of Brookline, the first in the nation to pass such a ban.

A customer exhales vapor from an electronic cigarette. David Paul Morris, Bloomberg

September 17, 2024

3 minutes to read

Two towns in Massachusetts are considering enacting a generational ban on nicotine products, which would ban those born after a specific date from ever buying these products in these municipalities.

Brookline was the first in the nation to pass a similar measure, which the state Supreme Judicial Court affirmed in March. The court’s ruling will now allow communities across the state to follow suit.

If passed in Lexington and Medford, the communities will follow in the footsteps of six other Massachusetts towns: Melrose, Wakefield, Stoneham, Malden, Reading, and Winchester, which have similar bans.

On Tuesday, Medford’s Board of Health online meeting voted to table the discussion of enacting a generational ban to a future date, stating that members still had unanswered questions.

Lexington’s Board of Health took up the discussion at an online meeting Tuesday night. According to the town’s spokesperson, no vote was taken, and no date is set for one in the future.

If enacted in either town, the ordinance would prohibit the sale of tobacco and vapor products to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2004.

Medford’s decision is unfortunate, said Katharine Silbaugh, a law professor at Boston University, because the reform works better the greater the geographic area covered.

“(Medford) will be a regional island where there will still be new people aging into the use of tobacco,” she told Boston.com, speaking before the Lexington meeting. “Hopefully, they have a chance to revisit it.”

Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., Silbaugh said.

“When it comes to a social or health problem, there is nothing as big as tobacco,” she said.

The legislation creates a policy that is compassionate to those already addicted by allowing those already over the age of 21 to continue to buy the products while preventing new users from becoming addicted, Silbaugh said.

The idea is to stop people from starting in the first place by stopping the pipeline of new users. Silbaugh said about 90% of those who use tobacco products begin as teenagers who access the products from young adults. Removing the ability for those in their 20s to buy the products effectively cuts off access.

“The industry is fighting it because it is effective,” she said. “It underlines their main business model, which is addiction.”

Silbaugh, who was integral in passing the legislation in Brookline, says that the retailers were against the change, but the law allowed them time to adapt gradually. Since the reform was implemented in 2021 in Brookline, she said, no convenience store that sells tobacco products has closed.

As more towns across the state consider the ordinance, Silbaugh said, “It’s pretty exciting.”

Convenience stores oppose the measures

The New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association, representing thousands of convenience stores in New England, opposes the measures.

Peter Brennan, the executive director, says the ordinance applies a discriminatory ban against the purchase of legal products by 21-plus adults and treats them differently from those born before them.

The law, the association said, also creates and supports a dangerous illicit market, restricts the free choices of legal products to adults, and does nothing to address underage youth’s use of nicotine and tobacco products, which are already at historical lows.

“We are a lot more than just cokes and smokes in the past,” Brennan told Boston.com. “If you lose a customer because you don’t carry the thing they want, they go somewhere else, and you don’t sell them anything.”

Brennan said those who come in to buy these products are also buying gas, charging their EVs, or picking up snacks, grocery items, and more. He argues those sales will now go to other local jurisdictions without the ban.

Brennan said that the clerks are at the forefront of this ban. Many will now have to tell someone over the age of 21 that they can no longer purchase nicotine while telling someone else over the age of 21 that they can.

“It’s enormously frustrating,” Brennan said.