BROOKLINE, Mass. — A Massachusetts town that embraced an uncommon regulation prohibiting the sale of tobacco to anybody born in the 21st century is being looked at as a possible design for other cities and towns hoping to more clamp down on cigarettes and tobacco items.
The law — the veryfirst of its kind in the nation — was embraced by Brookline in 2020 and last week was maintained by the state’s greatest court, opening the door for other neighborhoods to embrace comparable prohibits that will, years from now, ultimately bar all future generations from purchasing tobacco.
The guideline, which prohibits the sale of tobacco to anybody born on or after Jan. 1, 2000, went into impact in 2021 in the town of about 60,000 next to Boston.
Under a Massachusetts law signed by previous Republican Gov. Charlie Baker in 2018, anybody under the age of 21 is currently disallowed from acquiring any tobacco item — consistingof cigarettes, stogies and e-cigarettes — in the state.
Supporters of the Brookline procedure point out that state law acknowledges the authority of regional neighborhoods to enact their own steps to limitation the sale of damaging items.
Critics of the Brookline law, consistingof benefit shop owners who rely on the sales of tobacco items for a substantial part of their earnings, disagreed nevertheless, arguing that the Brookline law disputes with the 2018 state law which enables those over the age of 21 to purchase tobacco items — and would develop 2 sets of grownups, one that might purchase cigarettes and one that couldn’t.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court sided with Brookline, keepinginmind that cities and towns “have a prolonged history of managing tobacco items to curb the widelyknown, negative health results of tobacco usage.”
“Importantly, state laws and regional regulations and laws can and frequently do e