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SJC upholds Brookline’s ban on tobacco sales to people born this century

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the bylaw is “a rational alternative to an immediate and outright ban on sales of all tobacco products.”

March 10, 2024

1 minute to read

On Friday, the state’s highest court ruled in favor of a Brookline bylaw banning anyone born this century from buying tobacco products in town.

A national leader in the crackdown on tobacco products, Brookline voted in 2020 to ban sales to anyone born after Jan. 1, 2000, to improve public health and curb nicotine addiction in young people. However, local store owners pushed back in a lawsuit challenging the ban as unconstitutional. The lawsuit, “Six Brothers Inc. vs. Town of Brookline,” argued that the bylaw preempted a state law that set the Massachusetts minimum age to buy tobacco at 21.

The Massachusetts Superior Court dismissed the lawsuit in 2022.

In Friday’s ruling, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) upheld the lower court’s ruling in favor of the bylaw, saying it doesn’t violate equal protection guarantees. The court also said the bylaw is “a rational alternative to an immediate and outright ban on sales of all tobacco products” and gives stores time to “adjust to revenue losses that stem from shrinking tobacco product sales.”

“Because the bylaw falls within the type of local law limiting or prohibiting the sale of tobacco products expressly permitted by the act, and because the bylaw is not otherwise inconsistent, contrary, or conflicting with the act’s minimum age standard, we conclude that it is not preempted,” Associate Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt wrote in the ruling. “The bylaw is rationally related to a legitimate government interest.”

The ruling also stated that “local communities have a lengthy history of regulating tobacco products to curb the well-known, adverse health effects of tobacco use. For decades, such local laws have coexisted with State laws, often augmenting available statewide protections.”

Brookline passed the Tobacco-Free Generation bylaw, a first-in-the-nation policy, during a special town meeting in November 2020. The bylaw became effective in August 2021, with enforcement starting a month later.