Supervisor Myrna Melgar has introduced a ban on smoking at outdoor bar and tavern patios in San Francisco, which would make it one of the last major cities in the Bay Area to do so, and some local venues fear the ban would kill their business.

In keeping with her 2024 reelection promise, Supervisor Myrna Melgar introduced legislation last week that would amend the city’s Health Code to ban smoking on outdoor bar and tavern patios, as the Bay Area Reporter reports. It would also remove existing exceptions that allow smoking in certain indoor or semi-enclosed bar spaces, including some hotel rooms, to align with California law.

Melgar said she was still gauging support with the Board of Supervisors but expressed confidence in finding a balance between public health concerns and potential economic impacts on businesses.

“We tend to be individualistic about health. It is about my choices that I control,” said Melgar, via the BAR. “But these things are about everybody else, especially with smoking. Secondhand smoke impacts the people around you, your children, and the workers serving you. This is a really important workers’ rights issue.”

San Francisco is reportedly the last major Bay Area city without such a restriction, following similar bans in San Jose, Oakland, and across Sonoma and Contra Costa counties, with more than 100 California cities having adopted comparable rules, according to Mission Local.

The proposal, first introduced on April 7, is expected to be referred to the Land Use and Transportation Committee, which Melgar chairs, with the earliest possible hearing set for May 11. If it advances, it would reportedly require approval from five supervisors before reaching Mayor Daniel Lurie for final consideration.

The BAR reports that District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents South of Market and Mission Bay — areas with multiple bars that currently allow smoking on outdoor patios — said he is undecided on Melgar’s ordinance and plans to consult local business owners before taking a position.

Dorsey, who previously helped lead a 2019 campaign opposing a Juul-backed ballot measure to overturn San Francisco’s restrictions on e-cigarette sales, said he supports reducing tobacco harms but has concerns about unintended consequences. He pointed to the possibility that a patio smoking ban could shift smoking activity onto sidewalks, potentially affecting nearby businesses and residential buildings, per BAR.

Melgar responded that sidewalk smoking already occurs in the city and should not deter the Board of Supervisors from advancing the proposal.

LGBTQ Minus Tobacco, which previously helped advance a similar ban in Oakland, conducted a San Francisco study in partnership with UCSF researchers and reported that six of the nine bar patios tested showed unhealthy air quality levels.

Brian Davis, the group’s former project director and current volunteer, told the BAR that San Francisco has lagged behind other jurisdictions in protecting bar workers and patrons from secondhand smoke exposure. He said removing existing exemptions in the city’s Health Code would simplify enforcement and eliminate ambiguity around patio structures, such as whether fabric canopies qualify as “ceilings,” which can affect whether smoking is permitted.

Davis also pointed to broader public health and access concerns, saying people with respiratory conditions are often unable to safely spend time in smoking-permitted spaces.

Joseph Andrew Hayden, another volunteer with the group, told Mission Local that smoking remains common in LGBTQ nightlife venues such as the Lone Star and the Eagle, as well as events like Bearisson and Folsom Street Fair. He rejected the idea that smoking is inherent to gay culture and said some community members believe smoke-free environments would make quitting easier.

“I know that I would be much more likely and much more comfortable if I could go out to these places and actually inhale,” he said.

As the BAR reports, some LGBTQ community members have voiced opposition, including a local group of pipe and cigar-smoking leathermen, who called the policy “ridiculous.”

Four Castro neighborhood bars have popular smoking patios as well: Toad Hall, The Pilsner Inn, The Mix, and The Lookout.

Patrons at venues such as the Blarney Stone in the Richmond District said they would likely visit less often if smoking were no longer allowed on patios, arguing that they prefer the privacy of enclosed outdoor areas over smoking on sidewalks, according to Mission Local.

On the other hand, venues such as Casements bar and restaurant in the Mission already prohibit smoking on its outdoor patio, a policy that bar manager Mo Huynh said has been beneficial for business.

Image: Eagle Tavern

A self-described “AI Expert and Celebrity Pickleball Coach” got popped vaping in the bathroom of an SFO-bound flight Monday, and then promptly berated the flight attendant, claiming, “You assaulted me!"

Everyone is aware that smoking on an airplane is a highly illegal federal offense. But one asshole who got caught vaping in the bathroom of an American Airlines flight from Phoenix to SFO on Monday came up with a novel strategy he thinks might get him out of this obviously guilty jam: Record getting busted on your phone, post it to Instagram, claim that you’re an attorney, and then say the flight attendant assaulted you.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kobe Peter “Twoey King” Nguyen (@kobe.pickleball)

Behold the entitled stupidity of Peter Nguyen, who describes himself as an “AI Expert and Celebrity Pickleball Coach,” whom KTVU reports admits he was vaping in the bathroom, but claims he "only took one puff." The attendant sees he is recording the incident and grabs for the phone.

“Did you put your hands on me? She just put her hands on me!,” Nguyen yells at the attendant. "I have a lawyer. I am a lawyer!”

“I have 25,000 followers!” he continues to protest, as if this matters. Upon leaving the restroom, he announces to the passengers writ large, “You assaulted me. This flight attendant assaulted me.”

Interestingly, Nguyen’s Instagram post contains a note that, “To use this video in a commercial player or in broadcasts, please contact licensing@storyful.com.” Storyful is a platform that basically tries to monetize viral video for creators, so clearly Nguyen is hoping to make a few greasy dollars off the incident.

Mind you, a flight from Phoenix to SFO is just a two-hour flight. He couldn’t go two hours without vaping?

KTVU got a statement from American Airlines saying, "A customer on American Airlines flight 2860 with service from Phoenix (PHX) to San Francisco (SFO) was removed from the aircraft upon arrival at SFO due to disruptive behavior. We thank our customers for their patience and apologize for any inconvenience."

That station also adds, “When the flight landed, Nguyen was met by police. It’s unclear if he faced any punishment.”

Related: Juul Knowingly Sold More Than a Million Contaminated Vape Pods, Fired Exec Claims [SFist]

Image: kobe.pickleball via Instagram

A new nanny-state ordinance coming from the Board of Supervisors proposes banning all smoking — including vapes and cannabis smoking — in apartment buildings of more than three units. You'd best believe that this won't pass easily, at least the pot-smoking part.

The proposed ordinance is the last to come from termed-out District 7 Supervisor Norman Yee, and as the Examiner reports, the board's Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee voted Thursday to bring it to a full board vote on December 1.

"“We are discussing the right of our residents to breathe clean air," said Yee, per the Examiner. And he's not willing to make broad exceptions for the city's considerable community of marijuana fans.

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman provided some pushback, in a preview of what's likely to come when the full Board of Supervisors discusses the proposed law in three weeks. As the Examiner reports, Mandelman has already suggested exempting cannabis from the ordinance, especially in light of the fact that it's now broadly legal for recreational use in California, though smoking it outdoors is not always perfectly legal.

Yee has said he's willing to accept an amendment that would exempt medical-use cannabis only, for those with medical marijuana cards only. But a broad exemption wouldn't go far enough to protect residents from secondhand smoke, Yee says.

"For folks who do not have a medical cannabis card, there are very few places outside their own home where you can consume cannabis," Mandelman said, per the Examiner. "It is not parallel to cigarettes in that way. Cigarettes, there are still places where smokers can go and smoke."

San Francisco has slowly whittled away the rights of smokers to smoke over time — one of the the last instances being a 2010 ordinance that banned smoking for people standing in lines at ATMs, movie theaters, or takeout places, and banned smoking at bus stops or transit stations. In 2014, the Board of Supervisors extended the city's smoking bans to include e-cigs and vapes, and in 2017 they voted to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes and all flavored tobacco and vape products.

Many rental apartment buildings across the city already ban smoking in leases, as do many landlords in smaller buildings. But making a ban on marijuana smoking indoors at home a city law seems kind of nuts for a town that has embraced recreational marijuana for decades, and decriminalized it long before the state did.

City officials estimate that about 12 percent of city residents are tobacco smokers, and about half of the city's residents live in multi-unit rental buildings.

Photo: Jude Beck

Whether you currently smoke or you previously did and quit, you appear to be likelier to have a bad case of COVID-19 according to a new study by UCSF researchers.

The study looked at metadata for 11,590 COVID patients and found that the disease tended to progress into severe territory about twice as often among people who currently smoke or previously smoked. As KPIX reports, the data also points to e-cigarette users as being higher risk as well, due to "damage to upper airways and a decrease in pulmonary immune function in general."

The data tracks with what was already established about MERS, the infection caused by a different coronavirus, and in which it was found that smokers had higher rates of infection and mortality from the disease.

The new study looked at data from patients from 19 different other studies done so far in China, South Korea, and the United States, but those studies were mostly based on hospitalized patients and therefore might be skewed toward the more severe cases in general. Also, the study does not allow for any assessment of whether smokers are at any higher risk of contracting COVID-19 in the first place.

The conclusion of the study is simply that "Smoking is associated with substantially higher risk of COVID-19 progression,” as Professor Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education says. "This finding suggests that California’s ongoing strong tobacco control measures that have lowered smoking may, together with the state’s other strong public health interventions, be contributing to California’s efforts to thwart the effect of COVID-19."

In other words, lower rates of smoking in California might be contributing to the overall lower death rate the state is seeing than in, say, New York or Louisiana.

The study looked at the cases of just over 2,100 patients who experienced serious disease progression. Of those, 731 (6 percent) had a history of smoking, and among the smokers, 218 cases (30 percent) saw the disease progress, compared with 17.6 percent among non-smoking patients.

There has been contradictory discussion in recent weeks citing the low prevalence of smoking among Chinese coronavirus patients, and data that some researchers have used to suggest that nicotine might inhibit the kind of inflammation associated with severer cases of the virus. But the UCSF paper does not give this much credence.

"The fact that smoking prevalence is lower among COVID patients than the general population has been cited as evidence for a protective effect of smoking,” says Roengrudee Patanavanich, MD, PhD, a visiting scholar at UCSF from the Department of Community Medicine at Ramathibodi Hospital at Mahidol University, Thailand. "But this low prevalence may actually be due to an under-assessment of smoking, especially when you consider the difficult conditions involved when caring for people in often overwhelmed health systems."

In other words, they may simply not have asked enough patients whether they were current or former smokers in Chinese hospitals.

The ink is barely dry on the ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco products that San Francisco supervisors passed unanimously in late June, but the tobacco industry is firing back with cartons of cash in what appears to be a massively well-funded effort. District 10 Supervisor Malia Cohen’s ban on menthols, flavored chewing tobacco, and flavored liquid vape products is set to take effect on April 1, 2018, but the Chronicle reports that a conglomerate of tobacco companies already has a big-money referendum in the works to snuff the measure — and they’re reportedly paying a gaudy $5 per signature to petition signature-gatherers who will presumably hit the streets any minute now.

The effort against the flavored tobacco ban is as much the opposite of “grassroots” as is possible. This is a primarily out-of-town operation, ironically called Let’s Be Real, San Francisco, whose website is called AdultsLikeFlavors.org, and draws its primary funding from R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris (who now prefer to be called Altria Client Services). The effort is coordinated by a San Rafael-based law firm called Nielsen Merksamer, but in a press release describe themselves more as “a coalition that supports San Francisco’s long-standing spirit of not restricting choices or telling responsible adults what they can and cannot do.”

This “coalition” has only 30 days to collect 20,000 signatures, which seems pretty daunting. But they’re paying that five bucks per signature according to the Examiner, so that should help. I’m just going to hope the Department of Elections verifies those signatures carefully.

“This petition shows that they are desperate,” Sup. Malia Cohen told the Chronicle. “My legislation threatens the sale of their products, including Newport cigarettes, the No. 2 brand for all cigarette sales in the U.S. and the No. 1 brand in menthol sales.”

If the referendum is successful in getting those signatures, the flavored tobacco ban is suspended and the supes would vote on it again. They can repeal it, or if not, the referendum would be put on the June 2018 Primary Election ballot.

Such a campaign would recall the carpet-bombing of mailers and marketing that inundated voters in previous Soda Tax and Airbnb ad campaigns. “What they want to do is not just beat this ballot measure in San Francisco,” political consultant Jim Ross told the Examiner. “They want to send a message to other counties that they’re going to spend boatloads of money to make sure the measure fails.”

And other counties are already following San Francisco’s lead and stepping off the tobacco lobby’s reservation. CBS 5 reports that Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors also approved a flavored tobacco ban Tuesday night. That measure could go into effect as early as mid-August.

Related: Hoard 'Em If You Got 'Em: CA Cigarettes To Cost $2 More Per Pack

A man kicked out of a Mission District business for smoking reacted most aggressively Thursday, attacking the man who told him to snuff his butt.

The dispute began at 4 p.m. Thursday, in a business on the 2900 block of 16th Street,which is between South Van Ness Avenue and Mission Street.

Police say that the suspect, a man in his 40s, was smoking inside the business, an act likely prohibited by San Francisco law.

A 24-year-old man told the smoker that, if he wanted to smoke, he must leave the business. As opposed to complying, the smoker punched the man and "causing injury," according to the San Francisco Police Department.

The blow was severe enough that the injured man was transported to an area hospital for treatment, police say. Meanwhile, the smoker fled in an "unknown direction" and remains at large as of Friday morning.

Related: Video: Mission Smokers Reveal Thoughts On Proposed Cigarette Tax Increase

These are some #flavoredtobacco products purchased in stores across our city. We don't want these sold in #SF #FocusOnFlavors #StopProfiling pic.twitter.com/NZatm1capA

— Malia Cohen (@MaliaCohen) April 18, 2017

San Francisco and Oakland lawmakers are suggesting their cities ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, from mentholated cigarettes to flavored blunt wraps, cigars, and cigarillos. In San Francisco, the legislation would be another blow to the tobacco industry and its victims/customers, who must now pay $2 more per pack in San Francisco after the a new tax, passed in November, was enacted in April.

“For too long the tobacco industry has gotten a pass while they selectively target vulnerable populations with flavored tobacco products,” Supervisor Cohen, who is proposing the legislation in San Francisco, said in a press release. “Flavored tobacco hooks new smokers and makes them lifelong users. It can be more harmful and more difficult to quit than unflavored tobacco," Cohen continued. "Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, specifically cancers. This legislation will have a tremendous impact on the disturbing disparities for tobacco-related illnesses, and will reduce the number of new tobacco users that pick up the habit annually.”

SF Weekly points out the practice of restricting flavored tobacco sales wouldn't be completely new to the Bay Area. Berkeley bans flavored tobacco products and e-cigarette sales near schools, for example.

Mayor Lee, for one, is putting his weight behind Cohen's proposal. "That’s why they flavor it. They are trying to get vulnerable populations hooked,” Lee said according to the Examiner. “It is being hooked that brings in the profit.” If the bill makes its way through the Board of Supervisors, Lee will sign it into law, he says.

A similar push to legislate against flavored tobacco products comes from Oakland city council member Annie Campbell Washington, who was at SF City Hall in solidarity with Cohen according to the Ex. "We first took on big soda and succeeded and now we are taking on big tobacco together,” Campbell Washington said, referring to successful soda taxes passed in Oakland and San Francisco in November.

UCSF's Dr. Valerie Yerger points to the racial component of flavored tobacco product marketing and sales. “45,000 African Americans die annually from tobacco related diseases — more than police-involved shootings, homicides, AIDS, car accidents, diabetes; and all other preventable causes of death combined,” Dr. Yerger told Cohen. “Why do over 80% of Black smokers smoke mentholated tobacco products? Since the Civil Rights Era, Big Tobacco companies have perniciously targeted the African American Community with mentholated tobacco products.”

One major question that's left unclear by Cohen's press release: Whether or not flavored e-cigarettes or vape liquids would be affected by the legislation. SFist has contacted the Supervisor's office for comment and is expecting to hear back shortly. Update: A representative from Supervisor Cohen says yes, the SF ban on sale would cover everything that's a tobacco product, which according to state legislation includes e-products, not just combustible/smokable tobacco. The representative also clarifies that the law would not be a ban on possession, just on sale by local tobacco retailers.

Related: Hoard 'Em If You Got 'Em: CA Cigarettes To Cost $2 More Per Pack As Of Saturday

Smokers, it's time to start setting aside more cash for your habit, or to quit it altogether: On Saturday, the voter-approved tax increase of $2 per pack of cigarettes kicks in, making your cancer sticks costlier than ever.

Proposition 56 is to blame/credit, the measure California voters passed in November, 2016 that increased taxes from 87 cents per pack to $2.87.

And before you assume that vaping will get you out of the new fees, be aware that as of Saturday, "products like electronic cigarettes and e-liquids" will also face the increased tax, "based on their wholesale cost" the Davis Enterprise reports.

San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer, who sponsored the initiative, said last May that the intention of the law was to curb smoking, not generate dough. “If you raise the price, fewer young people will start smoking or ever get addicted to a substance that will ruin their health and cause them to die earlier," he said in May. "That’s the biggest selling point.”

Steyer might not be wrong: According to as noted by NPR last September, a 2014 report from the US Surgeon General suggested that "For every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes, smoking goes down 4 percent."

And as the smoking rate in CA is pretty low — about 12 percent, NPR reports, the extra two bucks might be the incentive some puffers need to kick the habit. "It may be that a price increase that will follow Prop. 56 will be enough to just get these light, intermittent smokers to just say, 'Forget it,' " UCSF professor and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education Stanton Glantz opines.

According to opponents, however, the tax will just "increase black market sales of cigarettes," Reuters reports. Tobacco companies like R.J. Reynolds spent at around $90 million to defeat Prop 56, also claiming that "just 13 percent (of the new tax revenue) goes to tobacco prevention and control programs," opposition spokesperson Beth Miller said. All in all, the tax is expected to generate $1 billion to $1.4 billion in new tax revenues for the state, most of it going to Medi-Cal.

Smokers who persist after this weekend won't just be paying more in taxes (and, one assumes, their mortality), as tobacco makers also raised prices on their products in anticipation of this weekend's increase. Investopedia reports that beginning March 19, smokes from major manufacturers went up by eight cents per pack, "a direct move to minimize the hit to their profits, as smokers absorb price increases. This willingness from consumers to pay for cigarettes and tobacco products is another reason the government does so well in taxing them."

One person who appears willing to pay the extra fees is Dolores Park smoker Austin Thomas. In a video taken last fall by Mission Local, Thomas characterized the increase as "f**king bulls**t, man," but said he "would just deal with it."

Related: Video: Mission Smokers Reveal Thoughts On Proposed Cigarette Tax Increase

San Francisco smokers may be an overall minority, but more often than not they're a well represented group on the back patio of El Rio. That space, a grotto behind the queer-leaning bar on Mission Street just south of Chavez, has had a laissez-faire (laisser-fumer?) approach for years, despite a ban on smoking on restaurant patios from 2010 which as SF Appeal noted at the time was meant to include bars with smoking patios "if the bar is located in a mixed-use building." As there's housing above El Rio, well...

Things hadn't been a problem, it seemed, until now. But as El Rio recently wrote to its Facebook page:

"As of Tuesday, December 13th El Rio will be a FULLY NON-SMOKING facility. This is enforced by our landlord and we have no control over it so THANK YOU in advance for helping make this transition a smooth one. Smoking is permitted out front at the curb."

What's next: A cat ban at El Rio? If so, god help us.

Of course, you and I are both thinking of another little bar in a mixed-use building where the patio is a essentially one big, beloved ashtray. It starts with a "Z" and ends with an "eitgeist" and there will be an actual, literal war if someone tries to mess with it.

All this comes at a time when cigarette laws in the city and state are tightening overall. The Board of Supervisors voted in March to raise the the age of tobacco purchase from 18 to 21 and, as California passed Prop 56, packs are now more expensive than ever.

It seems that smokers' days are numbered, and not just by the morbidity of the habit.

Related: Video: Mission Smokers Reveal Thoughts On Proposed Cigarette Tax Increase

With so many local and state measures on this November's ballot, it's perhaps easy for some to get lost in the mix. Proposition 56 may be just such a measure — and while not as attention grabbing as legalizing recreational marijuana, for example, it would still hit smokers right in the lungs. If passed, the statewide proposition would raise the tax on a pack of cigarettes two dollars above its current level.

Mission Local found some smokers around the neighborhood and asked them what they thought about potentially having to shell out additional cash for smokes. The results, as one might imagine, were mixed.

"It's fucking bullshit, man," Austin Thomas told the channel as he puffed away in Dolores Park — saying he "would just deal with it."

Not all smokers agreed, with at least one the channel spoke with coming out in favor. And, unsurprisingly, the group lobbying to pass the proposition has a lot of support. "Prop. 56 gives voters the power to Save Lives and protect the next generation from a costly, deadly smoking habit," Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom told Yes on 56. "As a father of four, I’m endorsing the Save Lives initiative and standing up once again to the tobacco companies’ relentless, predatory targeting of our kids."

If backers of the measure are successful, this will be the first significant increase of the California cigarette tax in almost 20 years. The hope is that it will reduce smoking statewide — a notion which NPR reports is backed up by various studies suggesting people quit or cut down when prices go up.

California's current statewide tax on cigarettes is 87 cents per pack — one of the lowest in the country.

Previously: Cigarettes Likely To Get More Expensive As $2 Tax Gathers Enough Signatures For Ballot

Over one million signatures have been gathered in support of a California ballot measure that would increase the tax on cigarettes statewide. As long as the secretary of state’s office verifies that at least 585,407 signatures are legit, the Chronicle reports the measure will be on this November's ballot — giving residents across the great state the first chance in almost twenty years to raise the taxes on a pack.

“If you raise the price, fewer young people will start smoking or ever get addicted to a substance that will ruin their health and cause them to die earlier," initiative sponsor Tom Steyer told the paper. "That’s the biggest selling point.”

The increase on smokes would be the first of its kind in nearly two decades, and would raise the tax by $2.00 to $2.87 per pack. The signature-gathering effort was sponsored by Save Lives California, which according to its website is "a coalition of doctors, dentists, health plans, labor, hospitals, and non-profit health advocate organizations."

"Cancer and other tobacco-related diseases kill more people than car accidents, murder, suicide, alcohol, illegal drugs, and AIDS combined,” Dr. Steven Larson, president of the California Medical Association, said in a press release. "The heart of this initiative is simple: Taxing tobacco saves lives by getting people to quit or never start smoking."

If passed, this measure would be yet another strike against the tobacco industry following the signing into law earlier this month by Governor Jerry Brown legislation raising the smoking age to 21. The Chron predicts the measure would generate between $1.1 billion and $1.6 billion a year. According to its supporters, that money would be allocated to "fund healthcare costs and research into cures for cancer and other tobacco related diseases."

Related: Sorry Kool Camel Kids, Bill Raising California Smoking Age To 21 Signed Into Law

Governor Jerry Brown yesterday signed into law a host of new bills designed to regulate tobacco and nicotine products, the most impactful of which is the raising of the statewide smoking age from 18 to 21 years old. With the signing of another bill, written by State Senator Mark Leno, that reclassifies all e-cigarette products as tobacco products, these new age restrictions will also apply to vaping. So reports the LA Times, which further notes that as these bills were approved during a special session, they will take effect on June 9 of this year — sooner than they would have otherwise.

Other measures signed Wednesday close loopholes related to smoking bans in workplaces, and expand no-smoking areas at schools and school facilities.

“The governor’s signature on Tobacco 21 is a signal that California presents a united front against Big Tobacco," State Senator Ed Hernandez, the bill's author, said in a statement. "Together, we stand to disrupt the chain of adolescent addiction."

With the signing into law of the new age restrictions, California becomes the second state (after Hawaii) to raise the smoking age above 18 to 21. San Francisco supervisors, of course, passed a similar measure earlier this year which is set to go into effect on June 1.

Interestingly, Hernandez seemed sensitive to that classic argument, often applied to the drinking age, that if a person can be drafted at 18 then he should be able to smoke/drink at that age as well. And so, Hernandez wrote into the law that active military personnel are excluded from the rules.

The Associated Press reports that, according to The Institute of Medicine, roughly 90 percent of daily smokers began using some form of tobacco by the age of 19. As such, proponents of the new law hope it will cut down on the number of people who pick up smoking in the first place.

A trade association for the e-cig industry called Smoke-Free Alternatives issued a statement saying, "California took a step backwards today by reclassifying vapor products as tobacco. Stigmatizing vapor products, which contain no tobacco, and treating them the same as combustible tobacco while actively seeking to economically penalize smokers attempting to switch is counterproductive to public health"

The California Medical Association supported the law, with its president noting that it was time for a new approach to regulating tobacco. “It is long past due for California to update our approach to tobacco," observed Steven Larson, "and with the governor’s signature on these life-saving bills, we have done just that.”

Related: Cigarette Buying No Longer An All-Ages Event in SF, As Supes Vote To Raise Tobacco Purchase Age To 21

Was it a Russian Hill altercation attempted mugging, or just a weird interaction that turned violent? The San Francisco Police Department is (quite rightly) unwilling to speculate on motive, but confirms that as of this morning, a dastardly mug thief continues to roam the streets of SF.

According to police, a 30-year-old man was standing at the corner of Green and Polk Streets Wednesday at 12:53 in the afternoon when a man in his 40s to 50s walked up and asked him for a cigarette.

When the younger man said he didn't have any, the older fellow "became agitated," police say, and "tried to take" the younger guy's backpack.

Things heated up when the smoke-seeker punched the backpack wearer in the face, police say, and they ended up "fighting on the ground." The scrum ended when the older man "snatched" his victim's "silver coffee mug" and fled east on Green Street.

The victim, police say, wasn't injured in the brawl. As of Thursday morning, the whereabouts of the mug thief remains unknown.

Though buying cigarettes might soon become a 21-and-over activity for any smoking Californian, San Francisco isn't content to wait for Governor Jerry Brown to decide if he's gonna OK the package of tobacco legislation California's State Senate approved Thursday that would increase the state's smoking age to 21.

Yeah, though it looks like the whole entire state is headed in that direction, like a commenter in the early 00s, SF is still eager to declare "Second!" In this case, the "second" is a pedantic one: according to a press release sent by Supervisor Scott Wiener when SF's "you must be 21 to buy tobacco products" ordinance was approved by the Board of Supes last week, SF is "the second largest city in the country, after New York City, to set the tobacco purchasing age at 21."

That distinction isn't that distinct, even in CA, since as of 2016 Santa Clara County has also raised the limit to 21, Berkeley's city council approved an increase to 21 on January 26 of this year, and Healdsburg OKed a 21-and-up law in 2014 before caving to tobacco industry threats.

Unlike the statewide law, SF's only prohibits folks who are under 21 from buying tobacco products, but doesn't disallow them from smoking, vaping, etc. The CA-wide law now on Brown's desk would increase the age one is allowed to smoke, which would also outlaw purchase of the products.

So, though obviously the local point is likely to be pointless very soon (unless Brown decides against approving the statewide law), why not make a little show of signing SF's proposal into law? That's what is happening RIGHT NOW, according to Mayor Ed Lee's schedule of public events (in fact, it's the only thing on it for today):

Once passed by Lee, the SF law will take effect on June 1. For the first year, tobacco sellers who violate the law will have a grace period during which they will be hit only with a warning, and will be reminded of the law with mailers, on-site visits, stickers and notices from SF's Department of Public Health. After that year, any offenders could have their ability to sell tobacco products to anyone suspended or revoked. Of course, since by then California's law will either be in effect (superseding local laws) or vetoed (paving the way for some fun local lawsuits, I suspect), all that is probably moot.

Previously: California Legislature Votes To Increase Smoking Age To 21
Cigarette Buying No Longer An All-Ages Event in SF, As Supes Vote To Raise Tobacco Purchase Age To 21

We warned you back in November, and now it's official: After an unanimous vote at the Board of Supervisors Tuesday, San Francisco will soon raise the age one is allowed to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21.

The law, which takes effect on June 1 of this year, will prohibit tobacco purveyors from selling anyone under the age of 21 cigarettes, pipe tobacco, and, yes, e-cigs and vaping products — as District 8 Supe Scott Wiener, who sponsored the legislation, told us last year, in 2014, "under legislation authored by Supervisor Mar, e-cigarettes were classified as cigarettes under our Municipal Code." So that's out too, kids.

The law will not criminalize the possession of tobacco products by the under-21 crowd, Wiener emphasizes, just the purchase thereof.

In a press release sent by Wiener's office late Tuesday, they note that "San Francisco becomes the second largest city in the country, after New York City, to set the tobacco purchasing age at 21" and that "Earlier this year the State of Hawaii raised the tobacco purchase age to 21."

The NorCal city of Healdsburg raised the purchase age to 21 in 2014, but backed down from that stance after repeated legal threats from the National Association of Tobacco Outlets. Santa Clara County has also raised the limit to 21, in a law that kicked in at the beginning of 2016, and Berkeley's city council approved an increase to 21 on January 26 of this year.

Thomas Briant, executive director of the NATO, claims that San Francisco cannot make the decision to raise the limit on its own, and must wait for a statewide ruling from Attorney General Kamala Harris before pre-empting state law.

Wiener clearly disagreed Tuesday, saying that “To be clear, our law does not in any way interfere with or undermine state law. In fact, it makes the state law easier to enforce.”

At the Supes meeting Tuesday, Wiener seemed to suggest that tobacco industry opponents bring their opposition on, as "Our city has a history of taking on major industries in the name of public health, in the name of consumers, and winning."

Wiener is likely referring to the suit Philip Morris USA filed against SF back in 2008, when the Supes voted to ban tobacco sales in pharmacies in 2008. The tobacco company dropped that suit in October, 2009.

Briant also takes issue with the age limit as it relates to when one is an adult, repeating as he has in the past that "18-year-olds are adults when it comes to voting, serving in the military or signing a contract — and smoking should be no different."

But Wiener clearly believes that the law's potential to save lives supersedes that argument, saying via press release that "studies have shown that over 90% of smokers begin before the age of 21."

"In 2009, Congress mandated a federal study as part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act to research the effects of raising the tobacco purchase age. Conducted by the Institute of Medicine, and released in early 2015, the study found that increasing the tobacco purchase age from 18 to 21 would decrease national smoking rates by 12% and reduce youth initiation of smoking by 25%," Wiener's press release states.

San Francisco's legislation would allow a one-year grace period for tobacco sellers, during which they will be reminded of the law with mailers, on-site visits, stickers and notices from SF's Department of Public Health. Those caught selling to 18-20-year olds during that year would be hit with a warning. After that year, the offenders could have their ability to sell tobacco products to anyone suspended or revoked.

Previously: Under 21? Then Forget About Buying Smokes In SF, Says Supe