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“He is absolutely unwilling to listen”

Update: Minutes after this story appeared, James Canning, spokesman for Nathan Fletcher, said, “The Vaping Ordinance will now not come back before the Board until September.”

“They are trying to force people to stop vaping, but this will not do it.”

Shon Elfarra owns a small shop in Fallbrook called Smoke Chalet. He says a new countywide law may put him out of business. The specifics of that new law are to be unveiled at the next county board of supervisors meeting on May 19.

“Vaping is 40 percent of my business,” says Elfarra. “How will I make it?”

It has already been decided there will be a new anti-vaping ordinance that will go into effect July 1. It will forbid all stores in the unincorporated areas of the county to stop selling vaping devices for at least one year, and place a complete ban on flavored vaping liquid, and all flavored tobacco products including mentholated cigarettes.

Elfarra is one of four businesses in Fallbrook who exclusively sell smoke products. Those stores, plus about 32 others in Alpine, Ramona, Spring Valley, Campo, Lakeside, Jamul, and Rancho San Diego will see a huge part of their income evaporate.

“Those 36 businesses will be completely out of business,” says Molly Sylvester of El Cajon who owns Vapin’ the 619 located just outside her hometown. She is the chairwoman of a group called Communities for Safer Vaping. “And then you’re talking about another 150 businesses like the liquor stores and gas station markets who sell vaping products. They will lose five to 25 per cent of their business. When it’s that much, now you’re talking about employees losing their jobs.”

There is just not much money to be made in retailing cigarettes says Elfarra. He says he makes about 49 cents per pack. “I will spend $79 for a carton and then sell each pack for $8.39.”

An employee at a different Fallbrook business who asked his name not be used says his store absolutely supports the idea that minors should not be allowed to buy vaping products. He says he is happy that the state sends in decoys to prove that no one under 21 can buy tobacco products. “But all kids have to do is go online and click a box that says they are 21 and they can get anything they want sent to them.” And he says that if his store is no longer allowed to sell vaping products, Fallbrook locals need only go to Vista or Oceanside to buy from a storefront. None of the county’s 18 cities ban the sale of vaping products.

County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher spearheaded the anti-vaping ordinance last fall, and he was successful in getting fellow supervisors Greg Cox and co-author Dianne Jacobs to sign on. Fletcher did not respond to a request for comment for this article made through his press aide James Canning.

Supervisor Jim Desmond voted against the anti-vaping law as half of the losing end of the 3-2 minority. His North County district includes Fallbrook. Desmond says he anticipated that the new law may indeed snuff out small Fallbrook businesses like Smoke Chalet, Holy Smoke Shop and Fallbrook Smoke Shop.

“We’ve heard from many businesses who are struggling, which we knew would be the outcome when this [ordinance] was passed,” says Desmond. “It’s unfortunate for businesses on the brink of going under.”

Every retailer contacted agreed that the major public health concern involves the well-publicized vaping of marijuana/THC. That vaping has been linked with permanent lung damage and some 60 deaths nationwide since it is often ingested with the harmful “Vitamin E”/acetate additive. Desmond says this new county law, “…doesn’t address the actual issue. The actual issue of [vaping of] THC products that are harming people across the county.”

At the May 19 meeting it will be explained how the county’s health department infrastructure will be redirected to implement this anti-vaping law. But is this the time to start turning busy county health officials into vaping police?

“At a time like this, we need to focus our time, energy and resources on safely re-opening our economy, not on implementing new, unnecessary ordinances,” says Sylvester. She says she has no problem with the establishment of a countywide tobacco retail license.

“I knew of a couple in PB who were selling to minors for over a year,” says Sylvester. “I don’t believe in getting involved in other people’s business, but last year I decided they were detrimental to the entire business. So I decided not to be quiet any more. We told the police.”

As Sylvester sees it, Supervisor Fletcher is actually harming the health of the county since vaping is used by many to get off cigarettes. “He wants to eliminate the product that is saving lives. He wants to leave cigarettes on the market which is responsible for over 480,000 [U.S.] deaths a year.” She says that all but one of the 60 deaths in the U.S. reportedly caused by vaping were connected with cannabis. “And the one that was not [cannabis-related] had pre-existing health issues. Vaping THC with the Vitamin E/acetate additive caused all the deaths and now Fletcher wants to demonize the whole vaping industry. But we have nothing to do with that.”

Sylvester notes that Fletcher has historically been pro-pot. “He is an advocate for cannabis. That’s why he refused to even say the word ‘cannibis.’ He won’t talk about it [in connection with vaping] because it doesn’t fit in with his political agenda.”

Ramon Mansour of El Cajon is the co-chair of Communities for Safer Vaping. His family is a longtime wholesale supplier of vaping products to many area stores. He says none of his stores sells to anyone under 21 and his company does not market the Vitamin E/acetate additive. He says Fletcher has turned this law into an opportunity for “grandstanding.”

“We’ve tried multiple times to reason with [Fletcher] but he is absolutely unwilling to listen,” says Mansour. “This guy has a particular agenda and he wants to stick with it…. Part of this law will also outlaw the sale of Newport cigarettes and flavored pipe tobacco like Cherry Cavendish. What does that have to do with youth vaping?”

Mansour says Communities for Safer Vaping has hired an attorney and may consider a lawsuit against the county. He declined to name the attorney.

Not all merchants have a clear understanding of what the new law may bring. Jimmy Malee says he understands his Holy Smoke Shop in Fallbrook will not be impacted by the new law because his store has moved away from the Juul flavored liquid that must be added to vaping devices and towards the self-contained, disposable vaping devices including the popular Puff Bars brand. “It has the juice already in it,” says Malee. The law, however, will also outlaw the self-contained Puff Bar devices in Fallbrook and the rest of the unincorporated parts of the county.

Malee and Elfarra say they would consider joining a lawsuit against the county if one materialized.

“The state got us last time, and apparently a pandemic got us this time.”

David Newman admits that his second attempt to allow legal pot shops to open in Oceanside is now dead on the vine. He and members of Oceanside Voters for Safe Access have decided to pull the plug on their efforts to get signatures for the their initiative. If enough valid signatures were collected, voters in November could have forced the city to allow dispensaries to open in Oceanside, defying city council.

Newman spearheaded a similar pro-weed initiative in 2018 which was abandoned. “Safe Access” supporter Dallin Young says only 3,000 signatures had been collected for this current petition as of February. The 180-day window to collect 9,609 signatures closes May 15.

“This virus puts all petitions on hold,” explains Newman. He says the only thing that would save the Safe Cannabis Act petition, would be if the governor would sign an emergency act that would allow people to sign petitions via the internet. “But I’m not holding my breath on that.” Insiders say two petitions to recall two councilmembers in Oceanside have become dormant.

Meanwhile the six dispensaries open in next-door Vista are thriving. They were allowed to exist by the citywide passage of Measure Z in 2018. On a recent Sunday evening, a security guard at Up North Cannabis on Vista Way was checking patrons with a body temp scanner. No one with a fever got through the second glass door to buy Grape Krush or Sugar Mints buds. There were about five patrons inside. Flora Verde on Santa Fe Avenue had about the same number of clients. Vista dispensaries only sell to those with a medical recommendation.

“I was doubling my business every three days before the Corona hit,” says Mike Mellano whose Coastal Wellness has only been open in Vista for five weeks. “If it hadn’t hit, I’d be killing it.”

Mellano says after the mass COVID-19 shutdown of three weeks ago, all the Vista dispensaries showed an immediate surge in business. “From what I heard, everyone had a big rush. Everyone out there was stocking up. Now it’s a little slower. I’d say we are doing 30 percent less of what we were doing that big week. Now it’s normalized. There’s not a ton of growth, but it’s steady.”

The city of Vista has issued 11 cannabis licenses. Mellano says the six that have opened so far are friendly with each other and with the sheriff deputies and city staff who visit. His beef is with the black market. He estimates that at any given time there are four to six illegal shops operating in the unincorporated county area between Vista and San Marcos.

“A month or two ago they closed down a shop in that strip and the very next day it looked like they opened up across street,” says Mellano. “It used to be it would take a month to close them down the second time. In this case they closed them down immediately. It seems like law enforcement is speeding up, and that’s a very good thing.”

Mellano says he would like it if the Vista dispensaries that can now only sell only to medical patients, be allowed to switch to adult use (recreational use). He says it is conceivable the Vista City Council, long adverse to marijuana retail, may see the light now that traditional tax income is reaching pandemic lows. “I’ll be making my first tax payment, which is seven percent of my sales, to the city on the 30th. They’ll be seeing a bunch of new tax revenue from us which would probably double if we went to adult use.”

Flora Verde was the second dispensary to open in Vista when it debuted six months ago. Owner Justin Christman says his store is about to make its second quarterly payment to Vista. “This one is almost triple of the first.” He adds that with the six dispensaries open, there is enough profit for everyone. He says only time will tell if eleven will be too many once the other five licensees open. “It’s like supermarkets, you can only have so many to be viable.”

Is Vista’s tax base benefitting from the fact that Oceanside and Carlsbad have no cannabis storefronts? “I would say that 20 percent of our business comes from customers outside of our five-mile radius,” says Christman.

While Oceanside does not permit dispensaries, it has passed ordinances allowing cultivation, manufacturing, and delivery. So far only one applicant, a delivery service known as MedLeaf, has made it to the conditional-use-permit stage. Manager/spokeswoman Gracie Morgan says Covid-19 has apparently slowed down the approval process: their March 25 approval hearing was postponed indefinitely.

“We want to work with the city, and have a ribbon cutting, and make cannabis legitimate just like any other business,” she says.

Once open, Morgan says the Medleaf business on on San Luis Rey Road in the Oceanside Industrial Park will employ ten delivery drivers. She says Medleaf’s main competition will be black market delivery. “We need to have legal delivery with licensed metric tracking.”

But what harm does black market cannabis delivery cause? Lieutenant Matt Cole oversees special enforcement for the Oceanside Police department. Before that, he served as a watch commander. He says that according to his experience, he is not aware of much crime activity associated with the home delivery of cannabis.

Meanwhile David Newman says Oceanside’s out-of-touch approach to cannabis, “shoves people like us into the black market.” Newman says his home delivery service, A Soothing Seed, has been making home deliveries in North County for years. He says A Soothing Seed will continue its door-to-door drops.

Oceanside Planning Commission Chairman Kyle Krahel signed on as proponent of the Oceanside Safe Cannabis Act. He says it is an “inevitability” that Oceanside and Vista will eventually allow regulated recreational retail shops, although it may be necessary for “new blood” to arrive at each city council. “The ship of state turns slowly.”