TALLAHASSEE - A Florida House panel last week temporarily postponed a regulatory proposal that raises the punitive damages award cap on vaping manufacturers.
The postponement comes amid talks between House and Senate members on how to move forward on a plan to reduce underage vaping. Lawmakers have this week before the legislative session comes to a close.
The House Judiciary Committee sidelined HB 7089, which the Florida Smoke Free Association favored despite a provision that would raise the punitive damages cap on civil lawsuits against vaping manufacturers to four times the amount of compensatory damages or $2 million. In most cases, the cap for other industries is three times the amount of compensatory damages or $500,000, according to the legislature’s analysis of the bill.
Senators and House members have been proposing different prescriptions for better regulating the vaping industry to reduce underage nicotine use, but the Smoke Free Association – whose membership includes small vape shops around the state – favors the House’s approach.
The association opposed Senate bills that would require vape shops to get tobacco product retail permits, in the same manner as stores that sell traditional tobacco products. The vape shops see themselves as providing a product that helps smokers quit a harmful habit and don’t want to be lumped in with retailers that sell tobacco products, according to Nick Orlando, the association’s vice president.
“We definitely applaud the House in their consideration of doing this bill (HB 7089),” Orlando told the Florida Record.
Currently, vape shops that don’t sell tobacco products don’t need a tobacco product permit.
The association’s members sell products that are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and have confidence in the safety of their products, he said. Members are focused on reducing tobacco’s harmful effects on adults and are not put off by the punitive damages provision, according to Orlando.
“We want to make sure retailers are providing the best products,” he said. “... I have not heard of any pushback from our membership … on the topic of punitive damages.”
Most vape shops prevent underage people from entering their establishments, according to the association.
The provisions of the Senate vaping bills favor the dominant vaping company, Juul, and tobacco companies, which commonly sell their products in convenience stores, the association’s president, Robert Lovett, said in a news release. The provisions of those bills would put many mom-and-pop vape shops out of business, Lovett said.