Quebec Vaping Shops Alliance: new ban on flavours could close 400 vaping stores

MONTREAL – A group of vaping stores says the abolition in three months of the right to market flavors for vaping machines, as announced Wednesday by the Quebec government, will lead to the closure of 400 vaping stores in Quebec.

David Levesque, spokesman for the Quebec Vaping Shops Alliance, says his industry represents more than $300 million in economic benefits and that the 400 independent stores employ more than 2,200 people.

In unveiling the new regulation on vaping, the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, said it would ban flavours other than tobacco for vaping. Flavours are the basis of most sales in vaping stores.

The government’s draft regulation provides for a 45-day consultation period, but stores will have to stop selling flavours in 90 days.

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Minister Dubé said that young people were the primary target of his draft regulation, as a survey cited by his government shows that the proportion of young people who have vaped has increased fivefold in six years, from 4 per cent in 2013 to 21 per cent in 2019.

On the other hand, the minister admitted that he expected his decision to lead to smuggling, that people may get vaping flavours through the Internet.

In this regard, the Alliance of vaping stores in Quebec predicts that within days, organized crime, websites based in Ontario and Indigenous communities will take over the supply of new customers.

The Alliance hopes that the Quebec government will put in place compromise solutions that would limit access to youth while saving vaping businesses.