This Monday, October 7th, 2019, the General Government & Licensing Committee signed off on a new recommendation. This vaping regulation would require businesses that sell vape products in Toronto to buy a license from the city.
If this proposal continues it could come into place by the end of October.
Its estimated in the Toronto area to be 78 specialty vape shops, and up to 1,400 gas stations and variety stores selling vape products.
The proposal would cost vape shop owners an estimated $645 initial fee, and annual fees of $315.
From my perspective, being a vape shop owner, I’m all for vaping regulations across Canada. The problem is this: “…of the roughly 1,400 locations in the city that sell vape products, including gas stations and tobacco shops, Grant said will be a different process. The locations that already have licenses to sell tobacco will be required to register with the city that they are selling vape products at no additional cost.” (citation)
What this means is, of the 1,478 businesses actively selling vaping products in Toronto, 1,400 of them will not have to pay any additional fee to be allowed to sell vaping products, and 78 of them will. This will specifically target stand alone vape shops in Toronto. I am all for regulation, but it needs to be fair and balanced. Targeting the 0.55% of stores that specialize in vape shops with licensing fees, and allowing the 1,400+ gas stations and grocery stores to pay nothing, is unfair.
Lumping tobacco products and vape products is a dangerous precedent. Vaping products need to be separated from tobacco products in the eyes of the world, and lumping them all together, and forcing vape shops alone to incur additional fees is unreasonable.
What is needed (in my humble opinion) is regulation on the quality of the products, and not just not selling vaping products to minors. If all that is needed to sell vape products is a license, but the quality of the products remains unregulated, concern will still remain about the safety of vaping products.
What we need is a regulation similar to current regulations we have for selling and manufacturing food products, which has specific requirements, including expiry dates, ingredient lists, and a host of other processing and producing regulations. This protects the public from low quality food products in our grocery stores.
When you visit a grocery store, you have an expectation of safe food products, and when you visit a vape shop, you should have these same expectations. With properly imposed government regulations this would be the case when purchasing vaping products.
We recommend you purchase you vape products only from recognized and long-standing vape companies. Don’t purchase vape products from convenience stores, pop up locations at carnivals, kiosks at malls, or farmers markets, and never buy an e-liquid without the ingredients listed, and an expiry date or manufactured date on the bottle.
Original article can be found here.
