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Pine County board asks Coalition to rewrite 1999 tobacco ordinance to curb youth nicotine use
Summary
County health officials urged modernizing the county's 1999 Tobacco Ordinance; the Board directed the Chemical Health Coalition to draft a repeal-and-replace ordinance aligning with state and federal law, restricting flavored products, banning free samples and price promotions, requiring retailer training, and strengthening repeat-violation penalties.
At a June 30 special meeting in Sandstone, the Pine County Board of Commissioners directed the Chemical Health Coalition to prepare a revised Tobacco Ordinance that would repeal and replace the county's 1999 law to reflect new tobacco and nicotine products and the raised minimum age.
Community Health Services Administrator Samantha Lo and Public Health Educator Jenae Hicks, speaking for the Chemical Health Coalition, presented the proposed objectives: modernize definitions and regulations; align county rules with current state and federal law; restrict flavored tobacco products; limit price promotions, discounts and coupons; prohibit free samples and sampling; require retailer education and training; and strengthen penalties for repeated violations. The Board reached consensus to ask the Coalition to return with a draft ordinance and materials for consideration of a public hearing.
Commissioner JJ Waldhalm questioned why the Coalition's effort focused primarily on youth tobacco and nicotine use rather than other youth health issues such as diabetes and obesity and requested statistics on youth diabetes and youth obesity. No vote on the ordinance amendments was taken at the meeting; the action was a direction to the Coalition to draft language for future Board review.
The Coalition's next step is to draft the proposed ordinance and present it to the County Board, which will determine whether to set a public hearing. The Board did not adopt any ordinance changes at this session.
