House Of Delegates Advances Major Regulations For Vape, Smoke Shops

The Vape Safety Act, House Bill 5437, regulates vape or smoke shop retailers and manufacturers. 

If passed by the Senate, operators will need to obtain and maintain a state operating license and adhere to new rules restricting signage and even the location of stores.

The bill bans vape and smoke shops from displaying many types of signage or being located less than 300 feet from schools including universities, government buildings and another half dozen existing locations.

The bill also addresses what stores can sell, banning terms like “candy” and “bubble gum” from packaging, as well as imagery of cartoon characters.

Several delegates including Hollis Lewis, D-Kanawha, praised the bill for substantively addressing the targeting of children.

“There was a signage of a store in Kanawha City, before it got painted over, that had cartoon images on the outside of the store,” he said. “Who are they trying to attract by that? Are they trying to attract us? I don’t think so. By having flashing lights looking like a darn carnival? It’s on us to do something about that.”

One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Del. Wayne Clark, R-Jefferson, said the bill is designed to curb the rampant use of vapes and other illicit products among children.

“Many of these products are manufactured overseas, also often in China. Some of them are so dangerous and unregulated that carry warning labels stating that they are illegal in the very country where they’re made, yet shipped here and sold to our children,” he said. “This bill tells those who are profiting off addiction and harm that their time is up. It tells them West Virginia will not allow its kids to be used for $1.”

Recent analysis of West Virginia tobacco use has shown a significant increase in the use of vapes over other tobacco products among teens and children.

Del. Elliot Pritt, R-Fayette, is a school teacher and told the House that the situation has significantly affected the state’s schools. 

“I think many of you all, if you don’t work in a school, you would just be absolutely floored, absolutely floored, at the amount of these things that we confiscate from kids on a daily basis,” he said. “I do bathroom duty in our school, and I’m gonna tell you what – walking into the bathroom after every class change, it’s like strawberry fields and blueberry haze every single day.”

Pritt said students have been found to be selling vape products to each other in and out of schools.

“I just really, truly don’t think most of you realize how bad it really is,” he said. “It is illegal right now to sell these to children. It’s illegal to do a lot of things, but decreasing the supply is never going to be a bad thing. They’re getting their hands on them some way or another, and they’re not just doing that, they’re doing it wholesale.”

Pritt said kids who would have never considered smoking cigarettes are picking up vape products without a second thought, and said he believed this bill will help to curb that trend.