Reducing youth smoking and preventing a life-long addiction to tobacco and nicotine products is critical for the health of our community. On December 20th, 2019 the federal government raised the sale age for all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, to 21. While this is a great first step to address the youth e-cigarette epidemic, the new federal law is not a “silver bullet”. Laws are only as effective as they can be enforcement, and enforcement through regular compliance checks and regulation education does have a cost. To help address these costs, Tobacco Free Florida Partnership of Charlotte County is educating our community and decision makers on the benefits of a county-wide tobacco retail license program to complement the new federal law and help enforce retailer compliance rates in our community.
electronic cigarettes/vaping devices
only for tobacco retailers
A county tobacco retail license (TRL) is a strong local tool to ensure all retailers in Charlotte County comply with the new tobacco sale age and don’t continue to sell these harmful products to our youth. In Florida, our state tobacco retail license only applies to retailers of traditional tobacco products. Retailers who only sell e-cigarettes and vapor products are not required to get a license. This makes it difficult to know how many e-cigarette/vape shops operate in our community and keeps these retailers off the radar of agencies doing compliance checks. We need a county tobacco retail license to ensure all tobacco and e-cigarette retailers in our community are clearly identified and comply with local, state, and federal tobacco laws.
Benefits of a county Tobacco Retail License (TRL):
• A county TRL gives you a complete understanding of how many tobacco and e-cigarette retailers are operating in our community. It fills the holes that exist in state and federal tobacco enforcement.
• A county TRL improves and strengthens retailer compliance rates of local, state, and federal tobacco laws, such as the new tobacco sale age of 21, by ensuring all tobacco and e-cigarette retailers in Charlotte County receive yearly unannounced compliance checks, a critical gap of state and federal enforcement efforts.
• A county TRL creates a self-financing mechanism to fund administration, retailer education and training, and enforcement efforts such as yearly compliance checks for every tobacco and e-cigarette retailer in our community. Improving retailer compliance rates is an integral step to reducing youth smoking and preventing a life-long addiction to tobacco and nicotine products – but we can’t do it without your help.
To learn how you can help – please contact the Tobacco Free Partnership of Charlotte County at prevention@drugfreecc.org.