KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For years, the effort to reduce tobacco use — particularly among youth and communities of color — has been the goal of some Kansas City lawmakers, citing concerns about the health consequences of the products.

But the effort to ban flavored tobacco products hit another roadblock recently, when local business owners pressed lawmakers about the potential financial impacts of the legislation, pushing the city council to drop the measure which some leaders concede was overly broad.

Now, the council’s gone back to the drawing board to come up with legislation that prioritizes heath concerns without putting profits at risk, working with businesses to craft community health legislation.

The city council has failed to pass an ordinance which would ban the sale of flavored tobacco, nicotine and vapor products twice in the last four years. The legislation was on the docket for committee and city council twice in October before it was removed from the council’s agenda on Oct. 24.

Council members say their aim is to protect children, lower-income communities, and communities of color from being targeted by tobacco companies. Business owners, however, say they need to protect their heavily-relied on tobacco profits.

Public health vs. healthy profits

Mayor Pro Tem Ryana Parks-Shaw — who first championed the legislation as a council member four years ago — cites her career in healthcare as a major factor behind her push for the ordinance.

“It’s difficult for me to know that we have tobacco products that are so prevalent in our community, especially in the Black community, to know that they’re in my district,” Parks-Shaw said. Parks-Shaw is a council member for Kansas City’s 5th district, which covers areas east of Troost Avenue. According to city health officials, 25% of Kansas City’s cigarette use is east of Troost.

Mayor Quinton Lucas told The Star the language of the ordinance was too broad.

“The original issue that we were attempting to address was actually vaping in our high schools,” Lucas said.

Local school superintendents had told Parks-Shaw that flavored vaping products are prevalent in schools.

“What can we do to make sure that we don’t have flavored vaping devices, flavored vaping in the hands of kids in schools? That’s something that I think myself and the entire city council are very supportive of. I don’t think we believe that this legislation was the right approach to get us there,” Lucas said.

Only users 21 years old and up can legally buy tobacco. However, the CDC reported 1.63 million middle school and high school students currently use electronic cigarettes, also known as vapes. Flavored and unflavored vapes are the leading tobacco product for youth in the United States, according to the CDC. The CDC also reported 88% of vaping students used flavored products.

In Kansas City, cigarette use is the fourth leading driver of inequity in life expectancy, according to city health officials. Nicotine dependent teens statistically were admitted as hospital patients 84% of the time with longer hospital stays and higher average costs than non-nicotine dependent teens.

Public health has been at the forefront of the proposed law, but pushback from business owners was part of the reason it did not pass, Parks-Shaw said.

Retailers sent thousands of emails to the council, and spoke up during public testimony in committee meetings.

Flavored tobacco products provide an important revenue stream for many local busineses, according to Missouri Grocers Association executive state director Dan Shaul.

For business owners, Shaul said, the outcome of the proposed ordinance could result in tanking profits and vacant storefronts without flavored tobacco sales. The threat of tobacco users traveling to nearby jurisdictions to buy their products instead was one the top concerns of retailers.

“The fact that it would have been a Kansas City-only ban would have made it very, very difficult for retailers in Kansas City to be able to compete with those outside the city,” Shaul said.

Parks-Shaw said she removed the ordinance from the docket after speaking with business owners and council members who weren’t ready to vote. The road ahead for Parks-Shaw and the council now consists of forming the proposed legislation into a directive that positively impacts community health, but also includes business owners as being part of the solution.

‘Let’s follow the rules’

Almost 400 cities and towns across the country have restricted the sale of flavored tobacco products. Kansas City would be the first city in Missouri and Kansas to pass such an ordinance.

In a letter to the council from Shaul and four other state business leaders, they point to similar flavored tobacco bans in the city of Golden, Colorado, and the state of Massachusetts that have negatively impacted retailers.

The city of Golden’s ban went into effect at the beginning of this year. In August, the city set up a one-time $100,000 relief fund for businesses hurt by the ban with payouts limited to up to $10,000. The state of Massachusetts banned flavored tobacco and menthol cigarettes in 2020 and has lost almost $150 million in tax revenue from sales since, according to an illegal tobacco task force study.

Business owners see high demand in flavored tobacco and vaping products and want to meet the demand, Shaul said.

“We want the freedom to be able to sell the products the consumer wants, but we also want to work with the community and be a good player in the community as well,” Shaul said.

City officials used the Massachusetts ban as a positive, stating neighboring states like New Hampshire and Rhode Island saw declines in tobacco sales as well. Rhode Island has passed a ban on flavored vapes that goes into effect next year.

City officials estimate between $1 million and $1.5 million in cigarette stamp and sales tax revenue could be lost as a result of the ban. The city collected $1.6 million in cigarette stamp taxes in the last fiscal year; half of the revenue is estimated to be from flavored tobacco products.

Parks-Shaw said she talked to up to 40 business owners on a phone call before the council meeting, who all relayed their concerns. She was encouraged that retailers wanted to work with the city to enforce the proposed law, and gave their own ideas for enforcement during their talk, like having ID readers.

“I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect in that call,” she said about talking to retailers. Enforcing the ordinance is a key reason for why council members were not ready to pass it, she added.

“The businesses are just as important as the individuals,” Parks-Shaw said. “There’s different opinions on how we get to what legislation will get us to the overall improved health [of Kansas City]. We needed to make sure that we try to address some of the specific concerns, or other things that would allow us to get to legislation that would be overall impactful and improve the health of Kansas City.”

The legislation is currently off the table, but Parks-Shaw is working with the city’s regulated industries division to require a license to sell vaping products and require annual compliance checks. A three-strike program for violating businesses, smoking cessation programs and other educational tools are also part of the plan.

Once that is in place, Lucas said he will further evaluate the ordinance.

“I would like to see what our enforcement apparatus looks like first, before we look [at] future legislation in that area,” Lucas said. “Particularly before we look [at] legislation that would, I think, ban a whole broad area of adult use, which [has] largely been a consistent and lawful area of use, since the founding of our republic.”

Shaul said retailers are more than happy to limit tobacco use in teens, but they wanted a seat at the negotiating table. He wants the ordinance to be clear and allow businesses to continue profiting from the tobacco products that are in high demand.

“Businesses support anything we can do to keep these products out of underage kids,” Shaul said. “Whatever rules are put in place, the retailers will follow those. And if a retailer is not, then shame on them. They shouldn’t be in this industry, the rules are there. Let’s follow the rules.”

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