Clay County Commission Bans All Electronic Vaping Devices

MOORHEAD, Minn. (KVRR) — What originally started as a discussion to ban flavored vaping in the county turned into discussions of how vaping has affected students and to expand the ban to vapes as a whole.

“We’re hearing that these are not desirable items to have out there. The requirement that they be at least 21 at the point of marketing. You talk to anybody in the school, kids are getting flavored vapes and they’re getting flavored nicotine pouches somewhere,” said David Ebinger, Clay County Commissioner.

An annual study by the FDA shows that 1.21 million high school students and 410,000 middle school students across the nation reported using e-cigarettes. Although, federal law has prohibited the sale and distribution of these devices to anyone under the age of 21.

“These are legal products and unfortunately if we don’t have adults who can legally purchase these items stepping up to not provide to underage children we’re not going to see a difference unfortunately,” said Jenny Mongeau, Clay County Commissioner.

The initial ban was passed in December, banning flavored tobacco, but was never set into effect. The commissioners had proposed for the motion to put together all vaping devices be banned.

“Ending the sale of all vaping products makes things easier for the kids to make the healthy choice. And it will help our convenience stores as well because they don’t have to go through the different flavors and try to decide is this a flavored product or is it not. It will be much easier to just say we don’t sell vaping products period,” said Jason McCoy, Tobacco Prevention Coordinator.

The measure was passed 4 to 1

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MOORHEAD, Minn. (KVRR) — Clay County Commissioners have passed an ordinance that bans the sale of all electronic vaping products for retailers licensed by the county.

The vote was 4-1.

The new language added to the original tobacco ordinance states, “no person shall sell or offer for sale by in person or by delivery any electronic delivery devices.”

This accounts for vapes, vaporizers, vape pens, hookah pens, electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes or e-cigs), e-cigars, and e-pipes.

The ban takes effect on June 1.

In December, 2024, the commission banned the sale of all flavored tobacco products except for menthol.