Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Working in tandem with other Humboldt county governments, the Eureka City Council has introduced laws banning sales of nitrous oxide and licensing tobacco sales.
The actions taken at the council's October 21 meeting are described as being protective of public health and safety.
The nitrous ban seeks to boost the city's enforcement ability by establishing what City manager Miles Slattery described as prosecutorial authority of offenses that are already illegal on a state level.
The county and the city of Arcata have already adopted nitrous bans, and other cities are considering it. A speaker during a public comment period acknowledged the potential harm from nitrous, but expressed some doubt about the prohibition approach.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: I'm of two minds on this. As somebody who works with youth and sees the real harm and detriment that this causes, it's really neurodegenerative. It just can literally destroy brains.
And then, like, from a harm reductionist viewpoint, if you want access to something, you're gonna get access to something.
And so you know the literature on banning things. It introduces stigmatization.
It like, creates an underground kind of pathway for these things, and it takes away agency from individuals.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: She recommended education and outreach to people to help them.
Eureka's ban defines violation as a misdemeanor crime. It doesn't apply to sales for medical purposes or prepackaged products like whipped cream.
Much of the council's discussion focused on making an additional carve out for nitrous oxide sales to restaurants and coffee shops that used the gas for culinary and drink making purposes.
Support for the ban, with sales to restaurants and coffee shops exempted, was unanimous.
After the unanimous approval vote, Mayor Kim Burgell described the ban as helpful to the community.
[00:02:00] Speaker C: I think that this is really going to be something that's beneficial to some of our parents out there whose children are addicted to Whippets and to the people that have lost their children, fathers, friends to nitrous through od.
And I'm sure as you wander around our community, you're going to find a lot of them.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: The council also introduced an ordinance establishing a system for licensing tobacco retailers. It's related to the nitrous ban in that it gives the city the power to suspend or revoke the licenses of tobacco retail sellers who also sell nitrous. Slattery said its intent is to, quote, reduce miners access to tobacco and encourage compliance with enforcement tools that we can use here locally to enhance enforcement by our code enforcement staff and then also to meet public health goals.
During a public comment period, a participant in a recent surveying effort talked about the findings and vouched for the ban.
[00:02:58] Speaker D: About two years ago, I helped conduct undercover decoy purchase surveys at 30 stores in Eureka, and just on my perspective, I think there's a few more of them now.
According to the Healthy Kids survey, at that time, 70% of high school students in Eureka felt that it was easy to obtain tobacco, and early that Monday morning, nearly 17% of stores sold tobacco to our underage youth decoys.
More than half the stores still offered flavored tobacco products that appeal to young people, even though flavored tobacco had been made illegal by state law the beginning of 2023.
There are drug and tobacco prevention programs in our schools and frequent smoking programs available to students and adults. Tobacco retail licensing is another important component to prevent nicotine addiction in the first place.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: A motion to introduce the ordinance included the addition of a clause barring issuance of new licenses to retailers within 600ft of schools or community centers and within a quarter mile of another tobacco retailer.
The introduction was unanimously approved.
Once adopted, the ordinance will give businesses 90 days to comply with its regulations, and the expected effective date is January 1, 2026.
In Eureka for KMUD News, this is Daniel Mintz.
