The Arizona Attorney General’s Office announced this week that it is cracking down on vape stores in the Valley for selling tobaccos products to underage consumers.
The announcement follows the filing of a civil complaint by the Office of the Attorney General (AGO) against New York Smoke Shop LLC and Pro Source Supply LLC, Pro Source Vapes LLC, and Pro Source CBD LLC (collectively, “Pro Source”) and their ownership/management.
The AGO alleges that these are two of the businesses that most “persistently and recklessly sell tobacco nicotine products to Arizona youth.”
The complaints detail how New York Smoke Shop LLC and Pro Source consistently either refuse to check identification, or when faced with the knowledge that a patron is under the legal age of sale, sells the tobacco or nicotine product anyway. In the face of numerous citations, fines, re-education, and warnings, New York Smoke Shop and Pro Source continue to sell tobacco and nicotine products to youth under the age of 18 in violation of state criminal law and under the age of 21 in violation of federal law.
Multiple children aged 16 to 17 were allowed to purchase e-cigarettes and cartridges successfully from these vape shops with no request for ID, as part of the AGO’s youth tobacco Counter Strike program. During these undercover inspections for underage sales, New York Smoke Shop posted an 83% failure rate throughout the last three years, having passed only one AGO program inspection out of six inspections. Pro Source has a 67% failure rate across its three locations. The average rate of failure among tobacco retailers in Arizona since 2016 is only 13%.
These vape shops do not warn youth of the dangers these products pose to health and safety, nor the illegality of their sale to underage consumers. Nowhere inside the vape shops nor within the 50-100 images posted by the owner on the Google business profile is there any signage warning that sales of tobacco products to persons under the specified age are illegal, warnings about the addictive nature of nicotine, or the required Surgeon General’s warnings for tobacco advertising.
These vape shops also feature retail advertising displays highlighting bold colors and themes that are designed to appeal to youth. In photos posted on their Google business profile, the interior walls of New York Smoke Shop are decorated with graphic, cartoon-like images and writing in a graffiti style. Fully-stocked displays of candy, chips, and other youth-friendly snacks are prominently situated in the middle of the floor, and a cooler stocked with sodas and energy drinks is just inside the front door.
Phoenix Children’s Hospital reports that 1 in 2 Arizona high schoolers have tried e-cigarettes.
New York Smoke Shop is located at 4040 W Ray Road, Suite 5-6 in Chandler. The Pro Source Shops are located at 15223 N 87th Street in Scottsdale, 5104 W Northern Avenue in Glendale, and 1808 N Scottsdale Road in Tempe.
Remember when this was a free country and the goobermint didn’t presume to parent us or _our_ children?
Yeah, it’s been a minute.