by Bruce Walker
Close on the heels of a lawsuit challenging Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s statewide ban on flavored e-cigarette products by an Upper Peninsula shop owner, a second lawsuit was filed Friday by Grand Rapids-based Mister E-Liquid. The manufacturer of vaping products also operates several brick-and-mortar shops, which it claims will be irreparably harmed by the governor’s executive order when it goes into effect at midnight Tuesday.
Mister E-Liquid’s complaint was preceded by a lawsuit filed by Marc Slis, proprietor of 906 Vapor in Houghton.
The latest lawsuit calls the ban “regulatory overreach,” which will have a significantly negative impact on Mister E-Liquid’s ability to sell in Michigan, as well as service its customers throughout the United States.
Mister E-Liquid, a Grand Rapids operation, employs an estimated 75 people at its headquarters and seven retail facilities. Five of those facilities are in Michigan: Belmont, Kentwood, Grand Rapids, Okemos and Niles, with two Indiana storefronts in Decatur and Lincoln.
Whitmer announced on Sept. 4 that her administration was banning all flavored nicotine vaping products, except tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes. On Sept. 18, the Department of Health and Human Services issued its rules, which banned the sale, transportation and distribution of all flavored vaping products except for tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes. The rules also restrict advertising for all vapor products, including tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes that may or may not contain nicotine.
When the initial ban was announced on Sept. 4, the governor’s office stated the rules would be issued within a few weeks and businesses would be given 30 days to comply. Instead, the vaping industry was given 12 days for compliance.
“The short time frame of the ban means that by midnight on Tuesday, October 1, 2019, Mister E-Liquid’s physical locations in Michigan must: … sell off or destroy all of their inventory of flavored nicotine vapor products (except tobacco-flavored nicotine vapor products) or otherwise transport that product out of the State.” Mister E-Liquid CEO Ron Pease said.
Pease said he also has to “rearrange the layout of physical retail locations in Michigan to ensure that advertisements for any vapor product (including those with/without nicotine and with/without flavor) are at least 25 feet away from the cash register and soft drinks; and … sell off, destroy, or ship out of Michigan all inventory of any vapor product (including vapor products without nicotine) that has any ‘imagery explicitly or implicitly representing a characterizing flavor.’”
Pease said the company stands to lose $500,000 of finished inventory in addition to the costs of moving Mr. E-Liquid to another state.
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Bruce Walker is a regional editor at The Center Square. He previously worked as editor at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s MichiganScience magazine and The Heartland Institute’s InfoTech & Telecom News.
