A group of opponents to Denver’s ban on flavored tobacco has filed paperwork with the city clerk and recorder’s office to try to overturn it.
A committee of five people, including Phil Guerin, who owns a vape shop on Colfax Avenue filed an affidavit for a proposed referendum. The clerk’s office reviewed the documents and approved the circulation of petitions, giving the green light for the group to collect signatures.
After a contentious debate last fall, Denver’s city council passed the ordinance in mid-December; Mayor Mike Johnston signed it a couple of days later.
Guerin said business owners most affected by the vote, including vape shops, were banding to challenge the decision. “This is one that has a big negative impact on the business community and on the health care choices that adults can make for themselves.”
The showdown late last fall featured community organizing, deep pockets on both sides, packed public hearings and impassioned testimony.
On one side were public health advocates, educators, parents and students and groups like the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, a national group. On the other, small vape shops and convenience stores, along with global tobacco companies.
Backers of the law said that flavored products can pave the way for young people to develop a lifelong addiction to tobacco addiction.
Opponents — including nicotine makers and sellers — argued the ban would be ineffective because people would just go to other nearby cities or purchase the products via the black market. They said other measures Colorado implemented, like a 21-plus age limit for nicotine, were already proving effective.
Guerin said he expects another tough fight.
“I think that they (flavor ban backers) could outspend us 10 to one on this, and I think that we still win it,” he said. “We still really like our chances in a guerilla campaign, for lack of a better word, but we really feel like we have a lot of community support and a lot of community support from other businesses that don't even sell these products that are helping us collect signatures, including bars and restaurants, and a lot of people in the service industry.”
In a statement from the group, which calls itself Citizen Power!, said the mayor and council “ignored hundreds of minority-owned businesses and tens of thousands of adult customers when they rammed through this ill-conceived prohibition.”
One of the leaders of the coalition that backed the flavored tobacco restrictions, Jodi Radke with the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, said they are “incredibly disappointed” but not surprised by the repeal push.
“The tobacco industry knows that 95 percent of adults who use tobacco started before the age of 21, and most initiate use around the age of 12. They know that the leading reason that kids experiment with tobacco is because the product is flavored,” she said in an email. “Removing the products from the market that are primarily used by kids threatens their bottom line and their ability to create lifelong users by addicting them early. Their pipeline for profit is our kids.”
Radke said she thought Denver voters would affirm what the council majority and mayor had already approved.
“We are confident that Denver voters and residents will see through the smoke screen they are trying to create and will side with the health of Denver’s kids should they obtain enough signatures for this to be on the ballot. Our polling has shown exactly that,” said Radke, the group’s regional director.
Some convenience stores might participate in signature gathering and getting the message out about the ordinance that takes effect March 18, but a statewide group representing convenience stores said it is not formally involved, said Grier Bailey, executive director of the Colorado/Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association.
“People in Denver should celebrate that any community member can take a question directly to our neighbors,” Bailey said, via email. “That includes people who own businesses that they use to support Denver families in any policy space.”
Opponents must gather more than 9,000 signatures to make the ballot
The group must gather nearly 9,494 valid signatures by March 19, 2025, for the city’s elections division to approve a referendum for the ballot. Guerin said the group started gathering signatures last week and already has about 2,000 signatures.
If they reach that threshold, it would likely be on the November ballot, according to a spokeswoman with the city clerk’s office. City council also has the option to set a special election before then.
Signers of the petition must be residents of the city and county of Denver and registered to vote in Denver.
The last time a referendum was on the ballot in Denver was in 2021, according to the clerk’s office. That year, voters rejected the repeal of a law governing how many unrelated people can live together. That referendum failed by a roughly two-to-one margin.
The council voted 11-to-1 to bar flavored vaporizers, menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, chews and pouches from being sold in the city. Flavored hookah can still be sold.
The new law is expected to affect roughly 550 Denver retailers selling the products.
Guerin said the group is also considering a lawsuit against the city over the flavor ban vote, and hoping the Trump administration will be taking action favorable to the industry as well.
The Food and Drug Administration has been flooded in recent years with applications for approvals of new vaping products but most haven’t yet seen action.
Guerin said he hopes that the logjam will clear up once Robert F. Kennedy is confirmed as the Department of Health and Human Services under the new administration.
“I don't want to jinx anything, but I think that this administration looks at things totally differently, and especially when it comes to vape and vaping products,” he said.
A repeat of last fall’s tough faceoff?
The fight over the flavor ban last fall played out in an election-style showdown. It included full-page newspaper ads, social media posts, texts and advertorials.
Vape shops, convenience stores, their employees and some consumers who use flavored products opposed the ban. A broad range of community groups like the NAACP, American Cancer Society, Denver Health and Servicios de la Raza, favored it.
Some of the city’s best-known lobbying firms were hired by both sides to represent various key players, according to the city’s lobbying dashboard. Others who often lobby lawmakers on Denver’s Capitol Hill also joined the fray.
Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund hired CRL Associates, Inc., a lobbying powerhouse, to support the ban. Radke, with the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, is also listed as lobbying for the fund.
On the other side, global tobacco company Altria hired The Pachner Company, one of the city’s most high-profile lobbying firms. Ted Trimpa, an influential Democratic strategist, represented PMI Global Services and Affiliates, Philip Morris International, one of the world’s biggest tobacco companies, which makes the popular Marlboro cigarette brand. Former Democratic state representative Joe Miklosi lobbied for a Colorado vaping industry group.
The firm Sewald Hanfling listed R.J. Reynolds, the maker of the Camel and Newport cigarettes, as one of its clients on the city’s lobbyist disclosure website.
Firm co-founder and principal, Josh Hanfling, is the chair of the board of the Denver Health Foundation, which was part of the coalition in favor of the flavored tobacco ban.
