CITY HALL — Chicago officials moved Monday to reverse the ban on the sale of flavored and menthol tobacco products near elementary and middle schools.
The revised ordinance, endorsed by the City Council's finance committee, would continue to prohibit the sale of the flavored and menthol tobacco products within 500 feet of high schools.
However, the city would ban stores within 500 feet of a high school from adding tobacco products to the items they offer for sale after Dec. 31. Stores near high schools that already sell tobacco products like cigarettes and smokeless tobacco would be allowed to continue.
The measure will be considered by the full City Council Wednesday, where it will have the support of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who called the ordinance "a fair compromise" in a statement.
A half-dozen owners of convenience stores throughout Chicago told the City Council's finance committee that the ban on the sale of flavored and menthol tobacco products — imposed in October 2014 — has forced them to lay off workers and slashed their profit margins.
The ban was "aimed at protecting children from tobacco industry strategies to hook them on cigarette products at a young age," officials said when the ban was adopted.
Public Health Commissioner Julie Morita has called smoking "the leading cause of preventable disease" in Chicago.
A study by the Food and Drug Administration found teens use flavored tobacco as a "gateway" to other nicotine products.
In 2010, New York City banned the sale of flavored and menthol tobacco throughout that city's five boroughs.
Under Emanuel, Chicago has raised the tobacco-buying age to 21 and increased the city's cigarette tax — $7.17 per pack — to the highest levels in the nation.
Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th), the chairman of the council's Black Caucus, said that the ban on flavored and menthol tobacco products has helped "create an underground economy."
"I've had murders over loose cigarettes," Sawyer said, referring to the sale of individual cigarettes.
However, Illinois Respiratory Health Association CEO Joel Africk urged the council not to reverse the ban, saying it risked reversing a 25 percent drop in the youth smoking rate during the past six years.
"Let's protect our kids," Africk said.
However, Emanuel said in a statement he was confident the measure would not amount to a "setback on the progress we’ve made in protecting youth from tobacco use.”
Africk praised another portion of the revised ordinance that would require store clerks to be 21 years old to sell cigarettes and tobacco products, calling it "progressive."
Stores within 100 feet of schools would still be banned from selling any tobacco products.
The measure would also hike fines from $4,000 to as much as $10,000 for those who sell untaxed cigarettes and other tobacco products.
In addition, the ordinance would hike the minimum fine for the sale of individual cigarettes from $500 to $1,000 and the maximum fine from $2,000 to $5,000.
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