Do Your Part to Reverse CA SB793 Flavor Ban

September 1, 2020 marked the day that California officially signs its state-wide flavor ban on e-cigarettes. This means that come January 1, 2021, companies such as BLVK can no longer sell its products to anyone within the state of California. While the law was created to continue the fight against youth access and initiation, it comes at the expense of normal, current adult smokers no longer having access to an alternative form of smoking. This is not good.

Luckily, the way in which California law works is that citizens may have a chance of undoing it. An effort is underway to collect signatures to get the flavored tobacco ban put on the 2022 general election ballot, which, if successful would also mean a delayed implementation of the ban.

According to the Cigar Association of America, the following timeline exists for the ballot referendum:

• Aug. 31, 2020 – Proposed referendum filed with Secretary of State

• Sept. 10, 2020 – Deadline for Attorney General to prepare ballot title and summary. As soon as title and summary are completed, proponents may begin collecting signatures.

• Nov. 26, 2020 – Deadline to submit signatures to county elections offices.

• Dec. 8, 2020 (tentative) – After signatures are submitted, county elections offices have eight working days to determine if the raw count of signatures meets the required threshold.

• Dec. 31, 2020 (tentative) – After signatures are submitted, county elections offices have thirty working days to verify the signatures if the raw count threshold was met.

• Jan. 1, 2021 – SB793 takes effect if the referendum does not qualify for the ballot

• Nov. 8, 2022 – If the SB793 referendum qualifies, if till be placed at the November 2022 General Statewide Election.

• Dec. 8, 2022 – The General Election vote is certified. If the referendum succeeds, SB793 will be repealed. If it fails, the law takes effect.

How Can You Get Involved?

To have SB793 qualify for the ballot, the referendum must collect 5 percent of the total number of votes cast in the last governor’s race. In this case, SB793 needs 623,212 signatures from registered voters to qualify.

Similar to all the other call-to-actions, we need your help! Not only do we want to continue to do business in our home state of California, but we also want YOU to have access to products that we believe the government should not regulate to this extent. We believe that there should be regulation for the vapor industry, however, completely annihilating access for those that are of age to use our products is the wrong way to go about it. 

Take a minute of your time to check your voter registration status, and to register if you're not already. Follow the links below to get started.