MINUTES 03-18-19 - Laserfiche WebLink

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m• s • Iiiiili 1•11 On behalf of my client, Robusto & Briar, and its principal, Patrick Siegel, concerning the proposed Tobacco 21 ordinance for the City of Lakewood, we are grateful for the care and consideration given to us by the Committee, its Chair, and this Council, as well as the commentary and guidance of the City's Law Director. I am offering these additional comments, both to make the record clear and assist Council in its final deliberations and vote. First, Robusto & Briar does not, has not, and will not breach the directives of Lakewood law by ordinance, or any of the similar and applicable state and federal regulations, by selling tobacco products to underage persons. We are a premium cigar and pipe tobacco retail emporium and we would not sully our investment or reputation by involving ourselves in the sale of cigarette, vapor products, "imitation" pipe tobacco, or the related paraphernalia, the real culprits in the explosion in underage use. Second, the decriminalization of improper tobacco transactions is a meaningful collateral step to the proposed changes of the Lakewood regulatory environment concerning tobacco. Nevertheless, Council should be alert to the risks of regulatory abuse and uneven enforcement that even civil penalty authorization can hold, particularly when the City is delegating its permitting and enforcement to another agency, even one as beneficent as the Cuyahoga County Board of Health. The target is the rapid acceleration and growth in the vape marketing to young consumers and the low-cost "bait and switch" techniques of improper sales to minors, but the ordinance's breadth is wider than that target. For example, Robusto & Briar is already required by its existing license to "card" for anyone who appears to be 27 years of age or younger, but this ordinance changes that threshold to 30 years of age. We are not convinced there is a rational way to distinguish those three years in the appearance of potential customers, or how a violation for "failure to card" might occur if the customer is actually over 21. We recommend that Lakewood require that its delegated permitting/enforcing agent be required to report to this Council, on some reasonable regular basis, about the direction, statistics, and results of enforcement in Lakewood. Third, we had been hoping for some carve out or exception for premium tobacco retailers, who are not the problem or among the professed targets of the generous volunteer anti-tobacco and health organizations sup ' porting this ordinance. We are told that making "exceptions" creates a "slippery slope" for adequate enforcement, and so our hope for a "carve out" was squashed. We are not expecting any major difficulty in complying with the ordinance, largely because the Law Director has opined that our expensive investment in our walk-in humidor and our existing retail methods for purchases, signage, and carding will be in compliance. Remember that when Robusto &Briar made its