First-Ever Local Tobacco Sales Ban Nearly Eliminated Tobacco Purchases In California Cities.
First-Ever Local Tobacco Sales Ban Nearly Eliminated Tobacco Purchases In California Cities
Almost every store in Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach that was subject to the ban stopped selling these products within three months, and the policy did not decrease overall retail sales nor push business to stores in neighboring areas.
In January 2021, Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach in California became the first cities in the United States to ban the sale of tobacco products in retail stores. The move was part of a broader national strategy to nearly eliminate smoking and its health-related harms through aggressive tobacco control policies.
A new study by a School of Public Health researcher found that the first-of-its-kind approach achieved its goal in both cities: within three months of the policy implementation, tobacco sales completely ceased in the observed Beverly Hills stores, and sales nearly ceased in the Manhattan Beach stores by December 2021.
Notably, the ban did not lead to a decline in sales of non-tobacco products at convenience, grocery, and drug stores, nor did it increase tobacco sales in stores within the surrounding areas, refuting common claims by opponents that such a ban would cause economic strain on stores adhering to the ban. The study was published in the journal Tobacco Control.
“These two city policies did exactly what they were designed to do,” says study corresponding and senior author Justin White, associate professor of health law, policy & management at BUSPH. “These results suggest that tobacco sales bans can be a feasible policy option for communities that want to reduce local tobacco availability without obvious, immediate harm to overall retail activity in the types of stores included in the study.”
The study builds upon prior tobacco control policies that have also aimed to reduce smoking through fewer tobacco product sales, including minimum price floor laws, reduced marketing and advertising of tobacco products (particularly to youth), bans on flavored products, and more direct communication and messaging about the adverse health consequences of tobacco use.
While tobacco use has declined significantly in recent decades, nearly 1 in 5 US adults reported that they used tobacco products in 2022, and about 8 percent of youth reported that they used these products in 2024. Smoking causes a range of diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and lung diseases.
For the study, White, along with lead author Nita Mukand, PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues from UCSF and the California Department of Public Health utilized NielsenIQ retail scanner data by product and store to estimate actual and counterfactual sales trends for tobacco products in local convenience (including gas stations), drug, and grocery stores, excluding independent stores, liquor stores, tobacco specialty stores, and cigar lounges. To study cross-border shopping, the researchers tracked sales in the border area around Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach, which included 252 stores and 300 stores, respectively. The observed products in the seven observed stores in both cities included cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco, and electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), such as e-cigarettes. To study overall retail activity, the researchers tracked sales of non-tobacco products, such as baby products, groceries, and health and beauty care.
The only store that did not cease tobacco sales by March 2021 was a convenience store in Manhattan Beach that had received a temporary hardship exemption and continued to sell a small number of tobacco products for six months after the ban.
The local stores did not experience a drop in overall customer visits. Although it is possible that some of the stores that implemented the ban may have experienced a redistribution of sales, overall sales of non-tobacco products did not change, which suggests that retailers may be able to maintain overall sales even after they remove tobacco products.
Cigars were the only products that increased in cross-border sales, by 11 percent in the areas surrounding Beverly Hills and 6.5 percent in the areas surrounding Manhattan Beach.
“In the border areas around both cities, cigar sales rose, even though overall tobacco sales did not increase, suggesting that if people were traveling to buy something, it was more likely to be cigars than other tobacco products,” White says. This observation doesn’t mean the policy failed, he adds, rather that “any cross-border response was limited and concentrated in a specific product category, which is useful for enforcement and policy design going forward.”
The success of the tobacco sales ban in both cities suggests that it could generate similar results in other cities, as well, but further research is needed to confirm that effect. Other cities in California and Massachusetts recently approved “generational” bans that restrict tobacco sales for people born after a certain year.
“The natural next step is replication in other places, especially in larger areas or clusters of neighboring cities, because cross-border shopping becomes less feasible when bans cover a broader geography,” says White. “It would also be valuable to study a wider range of retailers, including smaller independent stores and tobacco specialty shops that aren’t typically captured in scanner datasets, as well as track outcomes for longer periods of time to see whether any early shifts persist or fade.”
Pairing sales data with complementary evidence such as interviews with retail staff, compliance checks, and consumer surveys could also help explain how communities adapt, and identify additional support that retailers and enforcement agencies need for smooth implementation, he says.