Businesses are getting hurt, and you know, rent is very high in the city, and the regulations in San Francisco are working. Police actually send in decoys to the liquor stores, and they have sent decoys to my store in the past three months maybe five times. And we have always refused to sell to minors. We have always refused to sell to minors. Youve already banned the menthols, and the flavors of the ecigarettes, and now you want to ban the regular tobaccos . This is not fair to the Small Businesses. We need to survive in the city, and there aren a lot of big businesses in the city. You want my family to get out of the city . I think this is not fair. Thank you very much. Clerk thank you. Next speaker. Hello. My name is jason, and im a San FranciscoBusiness Owner and been a resident the same amount of time and parent of kids in sfusd who have experience in regards to this jool epidemic as you say. In my experience, i opened a tobacco shop without selling tobacco. Over the time, i was introduced to Electronic Cigarettes and the possibility of this being a cure, or if not, a cessation device to smoking. I did my research, went into it, purchased product, educated my consumers who were smokers to try it out and give it a chance. And just like my mother, i urged to give her Something Else besides tobacco a chance to solve the problems. To my surprise, it actually helped over thousands of my constituents excuse me, not my constituents, thousands of my customers quit smoking. We know that a vape and a cigarette are two different things. If youve smoked and vaped an electronic cigarette, you know theyre two very different. One is clearly a lot safer than the other one is. We need to concentrate more on a solution to these youth being able to get the product, and i recommend something along the lines of a supply Chain Management where each product is actually individually serialized and can be backtracked through the chain and that appropriate person should be held responsible. The black market that will be coming from the ban of these products clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is baozoo. I work as a at a convenience store. I have flavored cigarettes, and if you notice, theres no ban stamps. We are going to fuel a black market when we ban ecigarettes. We could be fuelling organized crime. Thats all i have to say. My name is edwin, and im translating for miss lau. Hello, supervisors, i am miss low. I have a store with my husband on powell street for more than ten years, i would like to oppose about this ban and voice my opinion about the ecigarette ban. So with the menthol ban earlier in the year, i already lost a lot of my business, like around 80 . I believe that we should not prohibit electronic ban, but we should educate our youth on the ecigarettes and how on how these ecigarettes are actually harmful to them instead of banning away these ecigarettes, which will cause us to lose business. Even though you ban ecigarettes, theres still a lot of problems going on around the city that you cant address, but banning the ecigarettes, you are actually letting a lot of other black markets and other crimes thats happening. So i think its best if we educate our youth better, and thats all i have to say. Thank you. Hi. My name is mark. Im going to be doing translating for mrs. Yee right here. Hi, supervisors. I live in district 6, and i am the mother of two children, one going to college and the other in middle school. I am here to express my concern about the city banning all ecigarettes. I understand that the city wants to prevent the youth from being exposed to ecigarettes. As a mother, i think the city should enforce education of youth on Nicotine Products and increase safeguard of underage exposure instead of complete prohibition. Obviously, i dont want my kids to get these products, but i know that teens are able to get these products on the underground. The black market would only increase the temptations of the youth. Im asking why the city wont choose to strongly regulate traditional tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana, instead choosing to ban these products completely. At the end of the day, it is strengthened awareness and education for the adolescents and parents and crack downs on illegal sales. I believe the most effective way to reduce the adolescents exposure is through education and awareness. This ban would encourage them to seek illicit means to retrieve them. The ban doesnt help our youth. Supervisor walton ted guggenheim, nahara, frank ayala, nakiim shareef, Tanner Wakefield. Good afternoon, supervisor mandelman, supervisor walton, supervisor stefani. Im here to represent the c. D. C. , the chinese democratic club. Were one of the oldest clubs in the country and one of the oldest democratic clubs in the city. Weve been advocating for the rights of Chinese Americans for over six decades, and i speak to you today as a smoker, as well. Our club is here to speak on the prohibition of ecigarettes in the city. The issue should be about protecting our young people and not about completing a ban on ecigarettes. And let me tell you why my organization is speaking out today. We oppose the ban as it is because it is unequally affects minorities in San Francisco and denies adults who wish to switch away from traditional cigarettes. Ecigarettes are an alternative, and some people claim it helps them reduce smoking, so why is the government trying to ban this . Studies have shown that Asian American groups are more likely to initiate smoking, so we believe that ecigarettes can help people reduce smoking, and this is a good thing for our community. Yes, we are also concerned that the ban will prevent adults who wish to step away from traditional cigarettes a better alternative. As an adult, i dont want to be denied access to a better alternative. This should be my personal choice. Having said that, c. D. C. Also supports greater regulations in underage access to ecigarettes. However, an outright ban is not a solution. Our city needs to deal with this by tightening existing regulation. Hi. My name is hajaj. Friends call me a. J. Im a manager at go go deli market. They put a ban on Vape Products, menthol cigarettes, and flavoreded cigars. Im here to speak on a lot of Business Owners behalf. A lot of them arent here, and a lot of them are here and arent speaking, so i hope i can express their feelings. Jool products actually helped a lot of our customers quit cigarettes. That was good to know. People, america is known as a place where freedom of choice has brought so many of us to this country. You want to legalize marijuana and ban menthol cigarettes, and yet, we see ecigarettes sold in so many places. Gas stations regular cigarettes sold in so many places. Are you telling me that regular cigarettes arent harmful . Alcohol . Why not banned flavored alcohol. If i start naming drugs, ill be here all night. Pills, all shapes, sizes, and colors. The freedom of choice is america. Parents need to police their children and educate them, not corner stores. All we can do is educate the country clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. Mark again. Im going to do translation for mrs. Wu. Good afternoon, supervisors. My name is shufan wu. I live in the san bruno area, and i am a mother to two young kids. Our family emigrated to the u. S. Hoping to seek a better education for our kids. I understand that our city wants to protect our youth from being exposed to ecigarettes, but to me, parenting and implementing Educational Programs would be more beneficial. Using a ban to solve the problem might lead to other problems. The youth will always find different ways to get these contraband products, therefore, we should help the kids to understand the harm of vaping products such as ecigarettes and prevent them fr to preve from using them. The city already has great programs to prevent children from getting prohibited items, so clearly, the city believes that great programs work for our kids, and a ban can only encourage the black market for buying these illegal ecigarettes. The responsibility for educating should begin again with family and schools, not by complete prohibition. So the government should find a better way to help our next generation. Thank you for your attention. Hi. Edwin again, translating. Good afternoon, supervisors. I live in san bruno district. I am here today opposing the citys attempt to ban the sales of Electronic Cigarettes. The city should not take away our attempts to buy ecigarettes which help us transition from cigarettes to a better product. I use cigarettes myself. I used to smoke two to three packs of cigarettes each week. My family was always complaining to me about my smoking habits, so i switched over to ecigarettes about half a year ago. It has less substances and let harm compared to traditional cigarettes, so my switch over to ecigarettes has greatly reduced the negative influence that smoking has over my family. Therefore, i hope the city stop banning and taking away a better alternative. I have noticed with the introduction of banning menthol cigarettes, there has been a black market for menthol cigarette. With the banning of excigarettes, i think the same thing will happen, leading to a black market for sales of Electronic Cigarettes. I believe that those should have their own healthy choices, and i hope the city can leave the alternatives for me to get away from traditional cigarettes. Because have a better please have a Better Regulation system than outright banning ecigarettes. Thank you. Clerk next speaker, please. Hi. My name is rakia, and my family owns a smoke shop in the sunset district. In a powerpoint i saw, it showed that the amount of Youth Smoking has decreases because you guys passed a bill that increased the smoking bill from 18 to 21. Also, all stores that sell ecigarettes in San Francisco sold to underage, and those two stores that sold to underage were big chain, not small stores. Were doing everything we should be doing to make sure that kids dont smoke. Yes, nicotine is addictive, but ecigarettes is a lot better than the 7,000 chemicals in traditional cigarettes. Every here is saying jool is bad, but there are many other companies that are my sales, most of them are from zero to 6, which is the less nicotine. They want that oral fixation that gives them, ecigarettes. My brother was smoking for 15 years. He quit after a week of vaping, he quit smoking, which is amazing. My Small Business, after the flavored and vapor ban, it lost anywhere from 1500 to 3,000 a day. Thats 730,000 a year that we lost. This ban would be another proposed clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is ted guggenheim, and im a resident giving in district 5, and im a member of the Tobacco Free Coalition. Jool is a part of big tobacco, and for anyone who thinks that big tobacco has not infiltrated our school, i show you this article, vaping, is it cool to school . I think everyone should do it every day. Its the best. You could even say amazing. Ecigarette companies try to market themselves as a healthier alternative to cigarettes. This would be like cocacola investing in pop tarts and then tell you that pop tarts are a healthy product. Jool is not cool, lets keep it out of school. Thank you for your time. Clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is selara, and i live in the bay district of San Francisco. Im a member of projecting of group, and were a group of young people that have an interest in controlling the sales of online flavored tobacco within San Francisco and california in general. We conducted a Research Among high school students, and from the survey, we found 50 of the students, they compared flavored ecigarettes to regular cigarettes. We know that all ecigarettes contain nicotine, which is very detrimental to the health, and its also very addictive. I dont think any of our parents would like us to be exposed to that, especially for nicotine, so i support the ban. Thank you. Good afternoon, supervisors. My name is audrey bedelia. I am a member of the San FranciscoTobacco Free Coalition and proudly San Francisco born and bred. When i began my work providing tobacco use prevention education throughout the bay area, including here in the city more than four years ago, i never would have predicted that id find myself in the front line, standing in halls and classrooms where thousands of youth that i speak to have fallen casualty to the deceptive tactics of jool and other ecigarettes manufacturers to gain new customers. This is much more than an epidemic. We are at war. At war with companies who defend profits over the health of our most vulnerable populations, who have yet to set foot in the trenches of our schools and homes and assess the real damage that theyve caused. Ecigarettes continue to go unregulated. Companies use tactics to target youth and minorities that otherwise are illegal for tobacco companies. Millions more are getting hooked, and cities like San Francisco are paying over 300 million annually towards the Economic Cost of addiction. All the while, more and more Research Reveals the Harmful Health effects of these products. San francisco has the opportunity to protect the youth of this community by supporting this ordinance and send this message to the ecigarette companies. This city is done paying your reparations. Its time to wave your white flag and keep your products out of our city clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is randy wong, and my organization holds quit smoking groups for the general public and in the past have held quit smoking groups for teenagers. Id just like to weigh when you decide what to do today, a story of a middle school that i went to two years ago. Its in the southern part of the city, and a group of 8th graders were caught all vaping. Going to that school, i noticed that there were many shy folks, outspoken 8th graders, tall ones, small ones, and the one thing that they had in common as i was talking to them is they are all 13 years old, and they just started vaping for the first time. That is something that i think must be considered today, and i wanted to share also that in the last two years, this really has intensefied. This is the reality that weve seen on the ground, in the youth centers, and where we go. Thank you. Hello. My name is sean patterson. I am a resident of San Francisco. I started as a smoker when i was probably almost 16. Im now 41. The only reason i quit cigarettes after trying every other alternative was learning about Vape Products about three years ago. I havent touched a cigarette in three years. You talk about Harm Reduction, and thats exactly what this is. Im here for the same reasons same reasons as the people that are worried about our children, our youth. Im on the same side as them. I believe we do need to have Harm Reduction, but theyre looking at this in a wrong way with poor evidence and poor scientific study, so i want to share is a study done by truth. Org which, of course, is pushing an agenda now that makes Vape Products look like theyre pushing it directly to kids, which i dont think thats true and accurate, but this study is done called rethinking nicotine and its effects by raymond niyura, ph. D. Director of science and training at the National Institute for Tobacco Research and policy so its at the truth initiative, truth. Org. And he says through this study, most of the psychological harm attributed to cigarette smoking derivatives are drives from the toxicants and tobacco in combustion products. Preventible morbidity and more mortallity has been related to combustible products, not nicotine itself. Nicotine is really no clerk thank you. Next speaker. Supervisor walton and i want to remind everyone in the overflow room, now will be the time that you want to come over for Public Comment, so if we have anyone in the overflow room that wants to come over for Public Comment, now would be the time to come over. Hi. My name is Tanner Wakefield . The tobacco generally jool has had the opportunity to submit for f. D. A. Approval for three years, but it didnt, so why should Public Health be punished for its negligence . These arent a Harm Reduction product. Far more youth are being addicted to nicotine than switching from cigarettes. Kids have initiated ecigarette use in droves because it appears safer, and it appears with less risk. As a result, more people are putting themselves at risk with nicotine addiction. My grandpa, when he used cigarettes at 14, he continues to use nicotine at 89. Should we abandon kids to a lifelong addiction at the hands of predatory companies . So i urge you to ban this. Thank you. My name is tony. I just wanted to say i grew up at a time when we didnt have access to things like vaporizers to nicotine. I lost people to cigarettes because they didnt have the ability to things like that. Nicotine helped us wipe out the plague when we didnt have antibiotics in the 16th century. It was a brutal thing, then as in the 80s and 90s, and we were still not having access to thipgs like the internet and jool pods. Any way, the point is those are things that have saved lives, and thats why they exist, and thats why they need to be accessible to people. Thank you. Supervisor mandelman all right. Are there any other members of the public who would like to speak on