If not for 503 eLiquid, Smokeless wouldn't be the company we are today. In honor of 503, we hold a special customer appreciation event on May 3rd to celebrate and give back to our wonderful customers. The event happens at each of our stores and features a grand prize for anyone (*must be 21+ to participate) who books a flight and hits all four Minnesota stores, plus our Folsom, California location within business hours on 5/03/19. We promise it's possible to complete the challenge as we have had multiple winners in past years! We'll get into what the prize is a little later....

Although May 3rd isn't our anniversary, we go harder than Black Friday on 5/03, and 2019 marks our fourth 503 day event! If you've been before, you know customers enjoy everything from food to games, and of course, huge sales! 

Meet Theo from Facebook
If you didn't know, every Friday at 5:03pm on our Facebook page, we do a flash sale on eliquid. Theo, our favorite pup, picks from 3 Smokeless Distro brands and whatever he chooses is 50% off until Midnight that day! Since this year's 503 day falls on a Friday, our weekly What Will Theo Choose game will be held not once, but four times, live in store! To make it even more fun and exciting, Theo will be choosing from promotional prizes that will be awarded to everyone in the store when we go live on Facebook and he makes his choice. Swing through our stores on 5/03 for a chance to meet everyone's favorite furry friend Theo and win limited edition prizes! 

The Tour
Visit every store on 5/03 to maximize your customer experience!  This year we have a special raffle with some huge prizes, soon to be announced. Customers can double their entries by visiting all four Minnesota stores! Our winners will be announced on Monday May 6th. You can click here to see all our store locations!

"But what about that special bonus for visiting all five stores on 503?" We're glad you asked! Customers who make it to all five Smokeless stores in one day unlock $720 of 503 eliquid for just five dollars and three cents! (FDA regulation prohibits us from giving away free eliquid). An adventure and a boat load of eliquid? Sounds amazing!

More news and details to come next week when we fully announce our 5/03 day plans! Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date on all the latest Smokeless news!

Last week we wrote about the city of San Fransisco's proposal for a complete ban on sales of vapor products, and this week we learned that a ban on the sale of flavored products was approved by the Arden Hills city council here in Minnesota. This trend of anti-vapor policies is troubling enough; but its how these laws get passed that's just as concerning as the rules themselves.

For those unfamiliar with the Twin Cities metro area, Arden Hills is an immediate suburb nestled to the north between Minneapolis and St. Paul. The reason this new law is curious is that the town of 10,000 people has no established vape shops in the city. Sure, there are a couple tobacco stores that may sell some hardware or eliquid, but there isn't an active vape shop to gather and share news and information. The same was true when T21 was adopted in St. Louis Park & Edina. Neither of the first cities to raise the age to buy had vape-only shops in town.

Low Resistance

The strategy is simple: Propose anti-vaping legislation in places without store and shop owners who will certainly object, and you're likely to succeed in passing it easily. Then when larger or even capitol cities are asked to adopt the same measures, the smaller cities are used as evidence that the measure is necessary. In some cases, council members have even expressed guilt for not passing measures sooner.

T21 has had a checkered success rate in the state. As of this writing it has still failed in more cities and counties than it has passed. But that's not much of a setback for the public health groups who push these policies. In fact, a patchwork of different laws from city to city strengthens the case to make something law at the state level, overruling local government decisions.

The sad fact is that this strategy of "one domino at a time" has worked, overall. While a statewide ban on indoor use was defeated in the early 2010s, and T21 has been held off thus far; both measures have made a reappearance in the halls of capitol hill. The patchwork argument will certainly be used to support these anti-vaping measures; and vape industry leaders are concerned Arden Hills' flavor ban may be next to get the creeping treatment.

The real question is, do any of these measures actually achieve the goals for which they claim to exist? Flavors are well documented as a major factor in many adult smokers making the switch. Yes, young people enjoy flavors; but so do most people with functioning taste buds. Removing flavor options for vaping is a feel-good action that runs a greater risk of closing an important off-ramp for smokers looking to quit.

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Minnesota's largest city is set to take up the T21 debate. Minneapolis city council members met Friday morning and agreed to bring the debate before the public in a hearing set for Monday, May 14th. The hearing will be open to public comment and discussion ahead of the council's final vote on the hot button issue.

T21 is a movement that seeks to raise the age for purchasing tobacco products from 18 to 21. The thought behind the movement is that raising the age to match alcohol sales will make it much harder for High School kids to get their hands on the products. 

“This is an ordinance that will save lives,” said City Council Member Andrew Johnson, a co-author of the measure alongside Council Member Jeremiah Ellison. “It’s clearly been a good idea that’s gained a lot of traction, because five other cities have passed it. And we think it’s time Minneapolis does so as well.”

But what the council members do not say, and many news organizations fail to notice, is that T21 has failed in more places than it has passed in the state. 4 cities may have enacted the measure, but 3 times as many proposals have been shot down statewide.

Image courtesy of THR4L (Tobacco Harm Reduction for Life)

Opponents, especially in the vaping industry, raise concerns about what will happen to young adults who seek smoke-free alternatives. A significant portion of today's ex-smokers quit between the ages of 18-20 and the fear is that this measure leaves them without access to vape products; whose goal is to get people off of cigarettes. Another concern is the patchwork of laws, making the rules confusing and doing nothing to stop young adults from driving a town over to get what they're looking for.

The strategy is part of an overall goal to push for a statewide T21 law, and indeed the measure is set to come before the Minnesota legislature this session. Currently 5 states and District of Columbia have enacted T21 laws.