COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Three petitions could put a stop to one of the latest efforts to increase the legal smoking age at the municipal level. In Columbia, Mo., residents have taken up the petition effort to force the City Council to reconsider the legal-age change.
Petitioners have until Jan. 5 to collect the signatures of 3,209 registered voters to force the council to reconsider its decision before putting it to the voters, according to a report in The College Fix.
The Columbia city council voted 6-1 earlier this month to increase the legal age to purchase tobacco products to 21. The ordinance also restricts the purchase of e-cigarettes and chewing tobacco.
The new law has angered Columbia residents and area University of Missouri students alike: Opponents have launched three petition referendums to scuttle each part of the law.
The Columbia ordinance, according to MU law professor Richard Reuben, might be doomed regardless of the petitions or the vote, the report says. “If the state law states that the age for purchasing tobacco is 18, then any local measure, like one by the city of Columbia, to raise that age might run into some legal challenges,” Reuben told KOMU 8 News.
Missouri law states: “Any person or entity who sells tobacco products, alternative nicotine products, or vapor products shall deny the sale of such tobacco products to any person who is less than eighteen years of age.”
Dan Viets, president of the Missouri Civil Liberties Association, is concerned that Columbia’s council members were picking and choosing which state laws they would support.
“What I really resented is the fact that when an ordinance to create a lesser penalty for marijuana cultivation came before the council earlier this year, the mayor, and certain members of the council who sponsored the tobacco laws were very, very concerned that this would be a conflict with state law,” Viets said in an interview with The College Fix.
But now, with the vote to increase the smoking age, “we could possibly have an ordinance that would conflict with state law,” Viets said. “The city is trying to make illegal what was made legal by state law.”
Click here for the completeCollege Fix report.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.