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Written by: LINGZI CHEN

Published: 17 December 2024

LAKEPORT, Calif. — Retailers who sell tobacco in Lake County will soon have new rules to follow.

The Lakeport City Council approved a tobacco retailer licensing ordinance with a 4-1 vote on Dec 3, overcoming Councilmember Kenny Parlet’s emphatic dissent.

Parlet cast the sole opposing vote, declaring an “absolutely no” following hour-long deliberations against certain requirements and penalties in the ordinance. He also presented views on nicotine use and COVID that contradict those of public health authorities.

With its approval, Lakeport became the latest community to join the county’s tobacco prevention efforts, which seek to restrict youth access to tobacco products and improve public health.

“The primary push for this is trying to curb youth tobacco sales and enforce existing state laws in the community through the establishment of this ordinance,” Lakeport City Manager Kevin Ingram said at the council meeting.

The tobacco retailer licensing ordinance, or the TRL, alongside a smoke-free policy and enforcement measures, will take effect on Jan. 1, 2025, for unincorporated areas of the county, following the Board of Supervisors' final approval in September.

Clearlake adopted the TRL on Nov. 21 with unanimous support, leaving Lakeport as the final jurisdiction in the county to join the initiative. The cities’ ordinances also begin with the new year.

In September, the Lakeport City Council first reviewed the tobacco prevention program presented by Liberty Francis of Lake County Public Health, who’s also the project director of the county’s Tobacco Education and Prevention Program.

The council then moved forward with a 4-1 vote, with Parlet opposing it then as well.

Francis’ presentation showed Lake County’s “health ranking being very low” at 56 of all 58 counties in the state.

“One of those contributors to our health rankings is our very high smoking rates compared to the State of California,” said Francis at the September City Council meeting, describing the smoking rate of 26.6%, which almost doubled the state rate.

The situation of youth tobacco use is particularly concerning. While 49% of California high school students reported it was easy to access vapes from a store, 60% of ninth graders and 65% of 11th graders in Lake County said the same, according to Francis’ presentation.

Two months later on Nov. 19, four council members unanimously approved the ordinance during its first reading while Parlet was absent from the meeting.

Shortly after Lakeport’s final vote in December to adopt the ordinance, Lake County Health Services issued a statement to “celebrate success in tobacco prevention policy milestones,” marking years of efforts since 2017.

Youth access to tobacco is “a high level issue to address” for Lake County, Francis reiterated in an interview with Lake County News a week later. She believed that the new ordinance allows the state laws to be “upheld on a regular basis.”

Lakeport TRL and delay in enforcement

The new TRL ordinance requires Lakeport tobacco retailers to obtain and display a valid tobacco retailer license and prohibits selling of any flavored tobacco products.

It also bans selling tobacco to a person under 21 or placing any tobacco products within 5 feet of “youth appealing products” such as toys, snacks or non-alcoholic beverages.

Additionally, no smoking is allowed within 25 feet of any retail establishment licensed under this ordinance.

Violations carry penalties: a first offense results in a 30-day license suspension and a $1,000 fine, while a second offense within five years increases penalties to a 90-day suspension and a $2,500 fine.

While Councilmember Parlet strongly opposed the penalty codes as he did to the first presentation in September, “all three jurisdictions had voiced that they wanted a strong penalty and enforcement policy in order to make this policy,” Francis explained.

The ordinance designates the city manager as the principal enforcer but allows delegation to another agency. Ingram said the city now plans to partner with Public Health, which has secured funding for the program on enforcement.

Technically, the ordinance is enforceable by the city 30 days after the Dec. 3 approval. But the actual date that it can be enforced will likely differ.

“I don’t have staff at this time to have a comprehensive enforcement program of that ordinance,” Ingram told Lake County News in a followup phone interview, adding that it will take a couple more months to sign a memorandum of understanding with Public Health.

When asked for a more specific timeline, “I would say there is no timeline at this point,” Ingram responded.

Ingram noted that violations like selling tobacco to minors and flavored tobacco are already enforced under state law by the police department. The new TRL ordinance's requirements and penalties will take effect only after the city formalizes its partnership with the county’s public health department.

Francis said it will take some time to roll out the license application process and “extensive education” on the program.

“We’re hoping to have everybody licensed in this by the spring,” she told Lake County News. “Probably March is what we’re shooting for.”

Opposition during council comments

At the meeting, Councilmember Parlet voiced his strong objection to the ordinance during council comments, citing his experience of “five and a half decades in retail.”

Parlet appeared to be the single dissenting vote in Lakeport and one of the two in all three jurisdictions. District 4 Supervisor Michael Green was the other “no” vote during the Board of Supervisors’ consideration of the ordinance.

“I'm not going to get this onerous fine, because I can't go up and talk to the supervisors and say how asinine a first offense, $1,000 fine and a 30 day suspension,” Parlet said, raising his voice, adding that he believed such a penalty would push retailers “out of business.”

Parlet’s indignation peaked when he spoke about employees in retail making mistakes, for which the owner would be fined and the license suspended under the ordinance.

In 2012, Parlet’s business, Lakeview Supermarket & Deli in Lucerne, faced a fine and a “permanent disqualification” notice from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, by the USDA Food and Nutrition Services for “trafficking,” which means exchanging SNAP benefits for cash.

At that time, Parlet said it was one of his employees who had made several inappropriate transactions totalling $132.50. He faced a $5,000 fine.

Parlet was required to pay a $59,000 appealing fine to be reallowed into the program.

On the TRL ordinance, Parlet also fervently opposed “carding,” which means being required to verify customers’ government-issued photo ID at every purchase of tobacco products, as is done with alcohol purchases. Parlet believed it’s “insulting” and “laborious” for staff dealing with customers looking apparently over 21 years of age.

Francis responded that her son just turned 20 and he looked older than his actual age, suggesting that a lack of “positive identification” at the counter would jeopardize the purpose of protecting the youth against tobacco.

When IDs are checked, Francis said, “There's less of a failure rate when that happens all the time.”

Francis said that training and education resources will be made available to retailers throughout the process, to make sure retail employees are property trained.
Parlet’s objections also extended to the no-smoking policy within 25 feet of the TRL licensed premises because of the concerns over his employees not having a place to smoke nearby.

“None of my people can go out to the dumpster and smoke without getting a violation,” he said.

Before moving to the vote, Parlet expressed a lack of willingness to act in accordance with the ordinance.

“I can’t abide by almost any part of this. So you guys do what you need to do,” he said.

While Parlet accused the program of not involving and understanding tobacco retailers, Councilmember Kim Costa recognized the concern and posed the question to Francis.

“Was there a place anywhere in the process where the stakeholders, such as the retailers, were notified and had an opportunity to share their views?” Costa asked.

Francis said that the team went out to survey some stores and speak to store managers and owners, although not covering all the 75 retailers in Lake County.

“What I've heard from those store managers is ‘we want a policy that’s going to be enforced,’” Francis said and explained that retailers who follow the law felt they are not on a fair playing field.

“It sounds like due diligence was done on that, and I’m comfortable with the ordinance as written,” Costa said.

Health official disputes Parlet’s claims

Councilmember Parlet also claimed profound medical benefits for nicotine use in his argument against the tobacco ordinance.

“Nicotine is not the villain that everybody thinks it is. It actually works miracles in long COVID,” Parlet said. “Whatever it is, I’m not ever going to say it’s a virus. I don’t believe it. I think it’s a bio weapon.”

Parlet went on to add: “Nicotine has been prescribed and proven to treat all over the world conditions such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, arthritis, myocarditis, cancer, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Schizophrenia, diabetes, glioblastoma, turbo cancer.”

However, local and federal public health authorities said just the opposite.

“There is no standard practice of medicine in which commercially sold tobacco is used to treat cancers or long COVID. And nicotine itself as a substance, I’ve never heard of nicotine … being used for treating any [condition],” said Noemi Doohan, Lake County Public Health officer who is also a practicing physician, in a video call with Lake County News.

“You can find a benefit to any substance,” said Doohan from a scientific point of view, “but its risks greatly outweigh the benefits.”

While Parlet also said that nicotine is “not necessarily addictive,” Doohan responded, pointing to “decades’ worth of research showing, proving, without a doubt that nicotine is addictive.”

“I think that the public needs to decide: who do they trust?” Doohan said of the possible impact of inaccurate information on public health.

“We have science, we have data, we have evidence behind our position, and therefore it's really up to the public to believe who they have the most faith in terms of reliable information,” she said.

“It is very hurtful to those people in Lake County who died from COVID to say they didn't have COVID,” she added. “So as a physician, I hope, as the health officer, I hope that I am the trusted member to this community to say COVID is real, and tobacco smoking generates dependence on tobacco, which can lead to lung cancer.”

Federal public health agency Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, or the CDC, explicitly states that cigarette smoking is a “major public health concern,” “harms nearly every organ of the body” and causes cancer, heart disease and stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, harmful reproductive health effects among other detrimental effects.

Smoking and secondhand smoke exposure cause over 480,000 deaths each year in the country, CDC data shows.

Doohan attended the council meeting and said she remembered Parlet saying he was against children smoking.

“I am completely in favor of eliminating the use of tobacco by children,” said Parlet in the meeting.

“Great! Because what we're talking about is upstream prevention of a generation of Lake County people being dependent on nicotine and tobacco products,” Doohan told Lake County News. “I'm really delighted to hear that, that part of it, he does not question.”

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