Tempe raises tobacco purchasing age; new rule to take effect in May. Here's what to know

Teens will no longer be allowed to buy nicotine products in Tempe after the city unanimously raised the tobacco purchasing age to 21 on Thursday, a move intended to curb smoking and vaping among young people.

Under the new policy, tobacco retailers also will have to get licensed with the city in order to sell nicotine products. The permit will serve the same purpose as a liquor license, allowing Tempe officials to yank operating permission from any store that sells to minors or violates other local rules.

Tempe is now the third city in Arizona to have such a licensing requirement for tobacco sales, along with Tucson and Flagstaff. Both that rule and the purchasing age increase will take effect in May.

"(Underage tobacco use) is an issue that's been plaguing our schools for many years. I want to thank the city of Tempe for being one of the top three (cities) to actually pass that ordinance," said Councilmember Berdetta Hodge, who had been pushing for the policy since she was head of the Tempe Union High School District Governing Board.

But Hodge, along with multiple other officials and residents, also lamented the exclusion of a major regulation that was originally included in the policy — a citywide ban on all flavored tobacco products, which would have outlawed everything from candy-flavored vapes to fruity chewing tobacco to menthol cigarettes.

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That ban was the main thing parents, school districts, and community groups wanted when they began pushing Tempe to crack down on tobacco sales in 2021, and city officials spent years trying to abide by that request.

But in January, Tempe decided to scrap an all-out flavor prohibition when it became clear that officials wouldn't be able to craft it in an effective way. The proposal was plagued by uncertainties, doubts and delays thanks to a long list of virtually insurmountable problems:

• The city lacks crucial economic impact information, including facts about how many of its estimated 152 tobacco retailers would shut down and how much tax revenue Tempe would lose.
• Tempe couldn't identify a viable way to apply the ban after choosing not to use the city's already stretched Police Department to oversee the "low-level" enforcement.
• Officials didn't know how the ban would be effective without a regionwide prohibition, given that Tempe residents usually live within 3 miles of another city where they could buy flavored nicotine.
• The cost-benefit of the prohibition may not have shaken out, given that trends in underage smoking are already fading. The feds found that nicotine use among high school kids in the U.S. dropped from a rate of 34% in 2021 to 17% in 2022, for example, and Arizona officials identified similar trends across the state.

That's why the narrower licensing and age-limit policy is a financially safer and more practical option for the city at this point.

In regard to enforcement, both the state and federal governments already monitor stores for compliance with age regulations in Arizona. Tempe can lean on public data from those agencies to suspend rogue stores, rather than having to create its own full-scale enforcement mechanism. Enforcing a ban on flavors would fall entirely to the city.

Plus, Tempe still doesn't know exactly how many tobacco retailers it has, or how a flavor ban would impact their businesses and the local economy. Councilmember Doreen Garlid said the licensing rule will help the city get that information and set the stage for a more robust policy down the line.

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Both she and Hodge said Thursday's ordinance is just the beginning and signaled their intention to pursue a flavor ban at some point in the future.

"This is going to be a first step," Garlid said. "Something I'm still interested in is banning all flavored tobacco (products) in the city of Tempe. That is where we started, this is where we are at now, but it doesn't mean we can't go back and do some more research."

Reporter Sam Kmack covers Tempe, Scottsdale and Chandler. Follow him on X @KmackSam or reach him at sam.kmack@arizonarepublic.com.