Evanston Becomes First Illinois Town To Ban The Sale Of All Types Of Flavored Tobacco

EVANSTON, IL — Evanston is set to the first place in Illinois where it is illegal to sell menthol cigarettes and other forms of flavored tobacco.

By a 6-3 vote, the City Council on Monday approved a rewrite to the city's tobacco ordinance forbidding licensed tobacco retailers from selling "any tobacco product that contains a taste or smell, other than that taste or smell of tobacco," starting on April 1, 2024.

Councilmembers Clare Kelly, 1st Ward; Melissa Wynne, 2nd Ward; Jonathan Nieusma, 4th Ward; Bobby Burns, 5th Ward; Eleanor Revelle, 7th Ward, and Juan Geracaris, 9th Ward, voted in favor of the ban, while Krissie Harris, 2nd Ward; Tom Suffredin, 6th Ward, and Devon Reid, 8th Ward voted against it.

Reid introduced an earlier, more limited version of the measure he wound up voting against.

"The original purpose why I made this referral ... was to target the items that are causing the greatest health concerns — that was flavored e-cigarettes with youth and menthol cigarettes with the Black community," Reid said before the vote. "But if we're going to include all flavored tobacco products, why would we not just ban tobacco altogether?"

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The 8th Ward alderperson did not receive a second from his colleagues when he motioned to ban the sale of all forms of tobacco.

"I think it would be a great idea to ban all tobacco," Health Director Ike Ogbo told Reid.

"The reason why we are also pushing for all flavored tobacco is the marketing schemes and strategies that the tobacco companies use to entice our youth and individuals," he said. "Their marketing uses different language that is vague that could lead to people consuming it without knowing it is flavored tobacco."

Suffredin said city officials should have consulted more with a lobbyist for gas station owners before making a final decision on the ordinance rewrite.

"I think we should just understand what we're doing to the Evanston retailers, and then make an informed vote," said Suffredin.

Revelle said she had been convinced by reading that the sale of cigars had recently doubled, driven by the increase in sales of small types of cigars.

"Many of which are flavored, and these flavored products, these flavored little-bitty cigars are the secondmost-popular tobacco product among youth, after e-cigarettes," Revelle said. "Tobacco is a really devious product and there continue to be ways to find more avenues to appeal to our young people."

Don Ziegler, the chair of the Evanston Health Advisory Council, also supported the broad ban on the sale of flavored tobacco, suggesting other Illinois municipalities would follow the city's leadership as they did in raising to 21 the minimum age to purchase cigarettes in town, which Evanston did in 2014.

"Stopping access to these tantalizing and addictive products is the missing link, which we need to do something about," Ziegler said. "Several states and municipalities have successfully adopted this measure, but none yet in Illinois, and we can't wait for the FDA to settle this issue."

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The Food and Drug Administration declared a crackdown on flavored e-cigarettes in 2020, effectively banning all flavors except tobacco and menthol.

Since then, the number of different types of e-cigarettes has nearly tripled, fueled by a wave of cheap, disposable products imported from China, according to Associated Press.

Retail data obtained by the AP shows the number of types of unique disposable products rose by 1,500 percent, from 365 at the time of the FDA's 2020 regulatory move to more than 5,800 earlier this year.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released earlier this month found e-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among teens, who favored disposable brands. But the use of all tobacco products fell among high school students, with the number of high schoolers who reported using e-cigarettes in the prior month declining to 10 percent, down from 14 percent last year.

In October, the FDA sent final rules banning menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars to the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Two states have already banned menthol cigarettes — Massachusetts in 2020 and California in 2022. Flavored e-cigarettes are banned in New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island, as well as River Forest, Chicago and unincorporated Cook County.

Representatives of the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association praised the Evanston City Council's leadership on the fight against flavored tobacco use. The ordinance was opposed by a representative of the National Hookah Community Association.

Clyde McLemore, founder of Lake County Black Lives Matter, said making it impossible for Evanston retailers to legally sell popular menthol cigarette brands in town would have discriminatory outcomes.

"This will create an illegal market. Single cigarettes will be sold on the street for $2 to $5 this will bring unnecessary contact with your law enforcement," McLemore said. "The revenue in the neighborhood stores and gas stations will decline, and the last thing Evanston merchants need in this difficult time is another loss of their revenue."

In a memo to councilmembers, Ogbo said smoking in Evanston is "disproportionately concentrated in Black neighborhoods," with the census tract containing the highest percentage of Black residents also reporting the highest smoking rate — more than one in five adults compared to about one in eight in Evanston as a whole.

Ogbo also said most flavored tobacco products are not taxed municipally, so banning them would result in "large public health benefits with relatively minimum impact on City revenue."