Vape store owner worries about House Bill 11

FLORENCE, Ky. — Kentucky lawmakers are trying to crack down on the sales of electronic cigarettes to minors and decrease the sale of unauthorized vaping products in stores.

Jesse George has owned Club Vape for over a decade. He says vape pens contain different percentages of nicotine, which can often help people stop smoking.

“You can be at a 12 milligram, and then you can step down to the six and then a three, and then eventually a zero,” he said. “Once you get down to zero, the only thing that’s in that is the e-liquid itself, is vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol and then the flavoring…So no nicotine.”

He says he opened the store because he himself used vapes to break his smoking habit.

“I tried every other method out there from nicotine patches, gum and, you know, Chantix, other products and nothing seemed to work and vape was the only thing that did work for me,” he shared.

The Kentucky House has passed House Bill 11 to crack down on the sale of electronic cigarettes to young people and keep unauthorized vaping products out of stores. George says this bill will heavily affect his business.

He said,“99% of the products that we sell from E-liquid to disposables would be off the shelves. So we would probably go out of business.”

State Rep. Rebecca Raymer, R-Morgantown, says this bill is to protect minors and will not block all products from being sold, just those that are not approved by the Federal Drug Administration.

In a committee meeting last week, she said, “There is lobbying efforts going on at the federal level to get the FDA to work through these products so that we have a very concise list of what is legal.”

In the meeting, she referenced other states, including Alabama, who have a registry over 1,000 vaping or e-cigarette’s that can still be sold in the state.

The minimum legal age to buy smoking products is 21 in Kentucky. George says his staff works to ensure that no materials are sold to minors as well by using a special software to scan IDs.

”Every single customer who walks in the door, we ask for their I.D., not only to make sure that they’re 21 and up, but also to the put them in the system and make sure that it’s everything’s recorded. So, we know exactly how old every single person is,” he explained.

Across his four stores, Jesse employs 17 Kentuckians. He says he will continue to advocate for their jobs and his businesses.

Under the bill, the fines for selling smoking products to minors would increase from $100 dollars to $1,000 dollars for the first offense, and from $500 dollars to $5,000 dollars for any future offenses.