Bowling Green business owner details local impact of statewide vape ban

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) – Beginning Jan. 1, a big change is coming that will affect those who vape.

To attempt to curb the use of nicotine vapes among the Commonwealth’s youth, Kentucky House Bill 11 passed in April of this year.

The bill will restrict nicotine vapes to a list of only those approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration, or those that have a safe harbor certification.

Local vape stores owners say that the bill is a death sentence for their business.

“We’ve been railroaded, and it feels bad,” Vette City Vape co-owner Cordell Gary said. “It’s just a real **** deal, and none of the politicians seem to care. Here we are, four days from when this takes effect, and Kentucky keeps saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to approve some products. It’s not going to be as bad as it looks. We’re going to do it.’ Well, people are closing their doors right now.”

According to Gary, the new law will restrict him from selling every nicotine product they currently carry. While he understands protecting kids, he doesn’t believe prohibition is the answer.

“Did it ever stop any of us from smoking when we were teenagers not being able to walk in the store and just buy it? No,” he said. “One of your high school buddies that was 18, or one of their brothers went and bought it, or someone was selling cigarettes or dip cans individually and doing it that way. Tennessee is not that far. The Ma and Pa shops that built this industry have been in it for the last 10 or 12 years. We didn’t get into this for a money grab and to sell a bunch of disposables to kids. We got in this to provide for our families.”

Only 34 e-cigarettes are currently listed under the FDA’s searchable tobacco products database.

Those not approved by the FDA or certified under the safe harbor provision will have to be removed from store shelves in Kentucky by Jan. 1.

According to Kentucky Representative Savannah Maddox, Kentucky stands to lose approximately $63 million in state business and consumption taxes along with an estimated $174 million in economic input from the ban of vape products.

Maddox plans to introduce legislation when the 2025 general assembly session begins on Jan. 7 to change the law, but until a new law passes, or an injunction halts the ban, retailers will have to stop selling the products.

“We’re going to keep the doors open and keep selling the hardware and the coils. Hopefully between Savannah Maddox on the seventh and the SCOTUS case that we have going on right now, and RFK and Trump … maybe with one of them we’ll get a break,” Gary said.

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