Stringent limits on the sales and use of tobacco can be effective in keeping it out of the hands of kids. The same goes for excise taxes that make buying tobacco products prohibitive and serve to keep them out of kids’ reach. Those and other measures only make sense as society tries to ensure another generation doesn’t take up the cancer-causing habit.

However, the sweeping ban on flavored tobacco products approved Monday by a majority of the Denver City Council goes too far. It risks shuttering dozens – maybe hundreds – of small shops that have managed somehow to survive in the COVID economy. Yet, it is unlikely to improve upon current restrictions in stopping children from taking up tobacco.

As reported by The Gazette, menthol and other flavored cigarettes, chewing tobacco and vaping products could not be sold under the ban in Denver after June 30, 2023. Exceptions would be made for tobacco used in hookahs, cigars, pipes and aids for quitting smoking.

That’s assuming Denver Mayor Michael Hancock signs the council-approved measure into law. Denver’s “strong-mayor” form of municipal government wisely reserves to the city’s chief exec the power to reject misguided ideas from the council.

This is one such council misfire. We urge the mayor to veto this ban.

It is aimed in large part at curbing vaping – the use of smokeless electronic cigarettes – among teens. Teen vaping is indeed a serious problem. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says one in five high school students and one in 20 middle school students used e-cigarettes last year. Most youth vaping involves flavored tobacco. A study by the Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health found that over three fourths of tobacco users 12 to 17 years old said they started by using flavored products.

Yet, the sale of tobacco products – flavored or not – to anyone under 21 already is prohibited statewide. Gov. Jared Polis signed that prohibition into law last year. As always, there no doubt are ways for minors to circumvent the law, but it’s hard to see how the proposal adopted by the Denver council would do much to keep product away from more kids.

A representative of 21 Denver vape shops, for example, says 96% of those shops’ sales come from flavored vaping products – yet the average age of those shops’ customers is 42.

Meanwhile, many of those same small businesses – a host of smoke shops as well as convenience stores and other businesses that sell tobacco – could take a big hit. The owner of one Denver tobacco and vape shop told The Gazette the ban will eliminate 80% of his sales and drive him out of business. The Denver representative of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets said the ban “will devastate hundreds (of) mom-and-pop gas stations and convenience stores throughout Denver” and will close stores and kill jobs.

If there are viable ways to tighten the current prohibition on selling tobacco to those under 21 – perhaps, increasing penalties on businesses in violation – the council ought to explore such options. But the ban approved this week is an overreach.

Denver Gazette editorial board