As a father, I appreciate the San Jose City Council’s efforts to stop kids from smoking cigarettes and using e-cigarettes, also known as vaping.

Like members of the Council, I too care about my family and my community, and I believe tobacco products are not for young people. I’m sharing my concern today, however, about what I and many in the trade association I represent consider to be government overreach.

The City Council intends to introduce an ordinance to ban the sales of flavored tobacco products within the city limits. As the owner of a convenience store operating in San Jose since 2005, I do not believe this ban will achieve the desired result.

According to the FDA, retailers in San Jose are doing an excellent job of ensuring their customers who choose to buy tobacco products are at least 21 years old. They card. It’s the law. These stores have a 92% compliance rate with age-verification laws during the last five years. The store owners and their employees feel great pride in knowing they are partners in the fight to keep tobacco products out of minors’ hands.

California’s youth cigarette smoking rate has decreased considerably. In 2019, the state reported its lowest high school cigarette use rate at 2%, down from 15% in 2002.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the number of teens using vape is higher but also decreasing on both a national and state level. The CDC’s 2020 National Youth and Tobacco Survey confirms that teens turn to vape to impress their friends and look cool.

The city’s proposed flavored tobacco sales ban will not stop these young people from buying e-cigs, or vapes, from social sources like friends, older family members, or the black market. It will, however, hurt responsible businesses who sell these products legally to adults, not kids, and who are desperately trying to survive in a fragile economy.

As we have seen across the United States, well-meaning yet uninformed local legislators further impair businesses by passing flavored tobacco sales bans. Despite being designated essential businesses during this health and economic crisis, COVID-19 related closures significantly impact our industry and the people who work in it.

These ordinances, although well-intentioned, do not stop teens or adults from using these products. The sales shift from law-abiding retailers to criminals who sell these products illegally and who don’t pay local taxes and certainly don’t check IDs.

California is home to 4.1 million small businesses, representing 99.8% of all companies in the state and employing 7.2 million workers. That’s nearly 49% or half of the state’s total workforce. Small businesses, including mom-and-pop convenience stores in San Jose, will play a vital role in building back the economy.

Suppose store sales decrease because a line of products popular with adult customers is banned; this City Council has impacted stores’ revenues. Owners will have to adjust payrolls. The community will lose jobs. Taxes on tobacco products, fuel, and other ancillary grocery items will decrease. The ordinance they propose would harpoon so many local businesses who are just trying to stay afloat. Bay Area tobacco customers in San Jose won’t stop buying flavored tobacco products. They’ll just travel to other cities, like Cupertino or Milpitas, that haven’t banned these items.

The voters of California will decide on this issue when a proposed statewide ban of flavored tobacco products appears on the November ballot in 2022. Let the democratic process work and enforce laws already on the books.

Rather than ban the sales of all flavored tobacco products, Council members should continue to allow law-abiding retailers to sell FDA-approved tobacco products. Local businesses are community partners. The San Jose City Council should support them, not hurt them.

Khushvinder P. Singh is the owner of Discount Liquor convenience store in San Jose. He is also the president of the Bay Area Chapter of the American Petroleum and Convenience Store Association.