New York City has filed a federal lawsuit against 22 online sellers of flavored e-cigarettes, which it claims to be selling to minors.
According to the New York City filing, these online e-cigarettes sellers were illegally selling and targeting minors via social media using flavors like "Lemon Twist," "Freddy's Pebbles" and "Whipped Salted Caramel."
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in Brooklyn, stated that the sellers were creating "a public nuisance" by selling e-cigarettes to people under 21 even though such the practice has been prohibited in the city since 2013.
Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a statement saying:Â "Preying on minors and hooking them on a potentially lethal, lifelong nicotine addiction is unconscionable. This lawsuit sends a message: we will do whatever it takes to protect our kids and the health of our city."
The lawsuit comes amidst efforts by state and local governments in the US to limit children's access to e-cigarettes. Emergency legislation has allowed New York state health officials to ban the sale of most flavored e-cigarettes.
In early September, Michigan became the first state to place a ban on selling flavored e-cigarettes.
iVape Distributions, one of the 22 defendants named in the federal lawsuit, said in an email that it did not know about the case and that it has never targeted its products to "anyone under the legal smoking age."
Meanwhile, Heather's Heavenly Vapes, also one of the defendants, issued a statement through email saying: Â "We take age verification very seriously. We are not in the business of selling to anyone who is not of legal age to buy our products. We have store and online systems in place to protect against underage sales. We are looking into the matter."
The NYC federal lawsuit indicated that many of the online sellers do not use age verification systems that check databases of government records to verify the identity and age of purchasers and that some transactions even went through despite buyers indicating that they were younger than 21.
