Cleveland votes to ban tobacco sales to anyone under 21

Cleveland will soon be the third city in the state of Ohio to ban the sale of tobacco products to persons under the age of 21.

The Cleveland City Council voted 13 to 3 on Monday evening in favor of raising the minimum age for tobacco sales from 18 to 21.

Councilman Joe Cimperman had spearheaded the effort, and said he had backed the bill in hopes of having fewer Clevelanders succumb to addiction.

“We’d have a lot less circumstances like my own, of holding my mom’s hand while she died, while she gasped for breath,” Mr. Cimperman told a local NBC News affiliate.

“The younger you start smoking, the more likely you are to smoke later in life,” he said.

In agreement is Dr. Rob Crane, the president of Tobacco 21, a Columbus-based advocacy group that supported the proposal and testified that adopting the law could curb the number of youngsters who take up smoking by upwards of 25 percent, Cleveland.com reported.

Mayor Frank Jackson, a Democrat, will have to sign off on the City Council’s decision next, and from there the ban will go into effect 120 days later.

Once the law is on the books, shops within Cleveland’s city limits will be prohibited from selling cigarettes, tobacco and e-cigarettes to anyone under the age of 21. First-time violators could then be eligible to be charged with a fourth-degree misdemeanor, and repeat offenders will stand the chance of facing upwards of 90 days in jail in addition to fines.

Two other cities in the Buckeye State — Upper Arlington and Grandview Heights — approved similar laws this year that imposed new age restrictions on tobacco products.

Next month the Cleveland City Council will weigh two other anti-smoking proposals, including one restricting where flavored tobacco is sold and another requiring the city to only hire nonsmokers.