Eleven companies in New York are defendants in a lawsuit filed by the workplaces of New York Metropolis’s Mayor, Eric Adams and the New York Metropolis Company Counsel, Sylivia Hinds-Radix.
The defendants are working enterprise in Brooklyn, Queens, Lengthy Island and Upstate New York.
The lawsuit in opposition to these wholesalers’ states that their companies have made unlawful gross sales of flavored disposable e-cigarettes, the preferred vaping units to center and highschool college students. It alleges that the distribution is very youth-friendly-flavored, equivalent to strawberry colada, mellow mint, blueberry energize, and frozen creamsicle. The operation goes on with retail vape and smoke retailers, comfort shops and on to the customers over the web, which is in violation of federal, New York state and NY city regulation.
This lawsuit seeks to dam the defendants from additional gross sales of those unlawful objects and seeks damages and penalties below state and metropolis legal guidelines. The lawsuit can be a companion to the town’s pending 2023 federal lawsuit through which two defendants within the case are already topic to courtroom order barring their gross sales and shipments of flavored e-cigarettes into New York Metropolis.
In keeping with Mayor Admas, “…a part of defending public security means defending the well being of New Yorkers, together with our most susceptible — our kids — and this administration is dedicated to imposing the regulation on the subject of unlawful vape gross sales.” As well as, the mayor notes that, “…this lawsuit will assist maintain eleven wholesalers accountable for his or her half within the unlawful sale of flavored disposable e-cigarettes at a time when nicotine habit amongst center and highschool youth is exploding. We won’t stand-by and permit this grasping, dangerous, and overtly unlawful habits to proceed,” Mayor Adams declared.
New York Metropolis’s Company Counsel, Sylvia Hinds-Radix in addressing the difficulty acknowledged that the lawsuit continues the town’s enforcement efforts in opposition to corporations that flout the regulation by promoting flavored vapes to retailers and on to customers. “The Metropolis of New York will use each software it could possibly in opposition to companies which might be fueling the epidemic of e-cigarette use amongst younger individuals and undermining public well being,” the Metropolis’s Company Counsel acknowledged.
The lawsuit additionally seeks to ban these eleven defendants from any additional unlawful gross sales that violate New York Metropolis’s Administrative Code and New York State’s Public Well being Legislation. As well as, the town will search to recuperate financial damages and civil penalties from the defendants.
Brooklyn’s State Assemblymember for the 42 District, Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn, mentioned she applauds Mayor Adams and Company Counsel, Sylvia Hinds-Radix for taking actions to fight this pressing menace to public well being. “On a regular basis that we do nothing, one other baby loses their mother and father to flavored tobacco merchandise and one other baby turns into addicted themselves. Tobacco utilization amongst center schoolers is on the rise, and information instantly ties it to cigarettes, with ice cream and sweet flavors concentrating on our youth.” The State Assemblywoman additional commits her help to the lawsuit. “I’m dedicated to working with the Adams Administration to close down the proliferation of unlawful smoke retailers and have launched laws in New York State Meeting (A3907) to ban the sale of menthols and different flavored tobacco merchandise state-wide, whereas imposing fines on anybody promoting these lethal merchandise,” Bichotte-Hermelyn acknowledged.
The lawsuit filed within the New York State Supreme Courtroom construct on commitments made in Mayor Eric Adams’ State of the Metropolis deal with in January 2024, the place he introduced to proceed working with Albany to grant native authorities the facility to examine and shut down unlawful smoke retailers, whereas supporting the equitable development of the authorized hashish market.
