MINNEAPOLIS – Last Friday, the Minneapolis City Council voted to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products at convenience stores. Council members in favor of the ban describe it as “a major policy change” and expect it to have a significant effect on young people, as a means to curb youth smoking.

According to news reports, flavored cigars can currently be sold at more than 300 locations, but when the law goes into effect in January that number drops to fewer than two dozen adult-only tobacco shops. The measure also set minimum prices for both flavored and unflavored cigars at $2.60.

The vote followed several weeks of debate between anti-tobacco advocates who argued that flavored products were designed to attract young smokers and shop owners who fear a significant hit to their businesses.

Following passage of the new law, Steve Williams owner of Bobby and Steve’s Auto World, contributed an editorial to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, in which he explained that the ban is not likely to eliminate underage tobacco use, and simply “shifts the products out of the hands of responsible retailers and exclusively to a small number of tobacco-only stores throughout our city.”

“Rather than allowing only a handful of stores to sell the products, why not come up with a solution that prevents underage purchasing,” he asks in the opinion piece, pointing out that the overwhelming majority of Minnesota tobacco retailers would never sell tobacco products to minors and cited the state’s age-verification compliance rate of 92% -- the nation’s highest.

Williams also cites a recent study from the Journal of School Health, showing that retailers are not the primary or even the secondary source of tobacco products to minors. In his editorial, he urges stricter age verification policies and increased use of the technology to enable greater verification, for all tobacco retailers, ensuring that responsible stores will never fail a sting operation and will never sell to minors because of this new technology. “Retailers have the technology to enforce tougher rules. Let’s use it,” he says.