Vape-only Versus Vape-And-Smoke Shops: Sales to Minors in Four States

Introduction.

Reducing access to tobacco via robust age of sale enforcement is an important component of comprehensive tobacco control, yet underage sales violations occur among tobacco retailers[1, 2].Vape shops specialize in sales of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), e-liquids, and devices. Some vape shops sell combustible tobacco(“vape-and-smoke-shops”) whereas others sell only noncombustible vaping-related products and no other type of tobacco product such as snuff (“vape-only shops”).Some claim thatvape-only shops take a more public health orientation, emphasizing combustible tobacco cessation among adults, harm reduction goals, and would not sell to minors[3, 4].However, if shops are vape-only primarily to project a positive public image and focus on novel products, a similar frequency of violations of sales to minors laws might be observed across shop type. If so, consistent regulations and enforcement would be needed across shop type. Retail sales of e-products to minors that differentiates vape-only from vape-and-smoke-shops has not been researched, but one study found that more last 30-day e-cigarette using youth obtained their product from “vape shop or other store that only sells e-cigarettes” (16.5%) compared to other retail locations such as “gas station/convenience store” (9.8%)[5].

Methods.

FDA conducts inspections of tobacco product retailers, making use of undercover minor and inspector operations, and reports these results in an online Compliance Inspection Database[4].The databaseincludes shop names, locations, date of inspection, which violations, if any, occurred, and outcomes (e.g., fines). We examined all retailerinspections that occurred from January 1, 2017throughOctober 31, 2019 in California, Florida, Illinois, and New York. We chose these states for geographic variation (representing the West Coast, South, Midwest, and Northeast) and because they reflect different levels of regulation of e-cigarettes. Florida was the only state that did not have e-cigarette-focused laws on taxation or product packaging, with a minimum purchase age of 18 (compared to 21 years of age in the other three states). Both Florida and Illinois did not have laws requiring licenses for retail sales of e-cigarettes, whereas the other two states did. Thus, e-cigarette regulation was relatively lax overall in Florida and Illinois, though all states had laws restricting youth access[6].We adapted previous methods [3, 7, 8] to identify vape shops as a specific type of retailer. Specifically, we generated14 key vape-related single words (e.g., vape, vaping, vapor, vapors, e-cig, cloud,) and identified vape shops in the database using the vape-related key words, removing any duplicates (i.e., the same shop and same date). Next, the coder (AG) used Yelp webpages to separate “vape only shops” from “vape-and-smoke-shops”[8].Phone calls to six randomly selected shops from each state and each type of shop (n=48 calls) were conducted by a data collector blind to the purposes of the study, confirming the Yelp coding as being accurate regarding whether or not the vape shops sold combustible products or any other type of tobacco product (i.e., no calls were inconsistent with the Yelp coding).

Results.

A total of 1099 FDA inspectionswere identified: 726 at vape-only shops and373atvape-and-smoke-shops. These inspections revealed 156 violations related to underagee-cigarette/e-liquid products sales at these shops. Violations were more common in Illinois (25 [26.0%]) compared to other three states (approximately 11% in the other 3 states, χ² [3, 38.58], p<.0001).We found no difference in underage sales by shop type in the overall sample (14.3% at vape-only shops vs. 14.1% at vape-and-smoke shops, p=.94) and within each state (see Table 1). Supplementary analyses revealed that in the vape-and-smoke shops an additional 28 violations were found pertaining to sales of combustible tobacco to minors (23 sales in Florida and 5 sales in Illinois).

Table 1.

Number of Violations Involving ENDS/E-liquid Products ByState and Shop Type

State	Number of Vape-Only Shops	Violations at Vape-Only Shops*	Number of Vape-and-Smoke Shops	Violations at Vape-And-Smoke Shops*	Chi-square statistics**	p-value**
CA	134	12 (8.96%)	86	12 (13.95%)	1.35	.25
FL	237	16 (6.75%)	115	10 (9.62%)	.84	.36
IL	246	65 (26.42%)	131	28(21.37%)	1.17	.28
NY	120	12 (10.00%)	41	1 (2.44%)	2.35	.13

^*Data are expressed as number (%).

^**For the difference between vape-only and vape-and-smoke shops within each state.

Discussion.

Comparison ofviolations of sales to minors laws between vape-only shops and vape-and-smoke shops fail to show notable differences in underage sales. These results are bound by locations where inspections occurred, and violations are higher in some other work[1].Also, there may be some variation in use of decoys (e.g., gender or age) across these states, though details on the FDA protocol are not available. All currently utilized decoys are under 18 years of age[9]. There are other sources of variation that could have impacted the results (e.g., an underage deterrent mail intervention was completed in Californiain March of 2019). Still, across e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes, relatively more underage sales violations occurred in Illinois and Florida, states that did not require retailer licensing to sell e-cigarette products[6]. Retailer licensing is needed across states to enhance compliance and enforcement with age of sale laws. Vape-only shops failed to demonstrate generalized promotion of public health compared to vape-and-smoke shops. While some vape-only shops may assist older, former combustible cigarette smokers to move to e-cigarettes, and eventually quit all tobacco products, such shops must comply with age of sale laws if they wish to be perceived as playing an important role in helping cigarette smokers quit.