Cinnamon fireball was among the many flavors at White Horse Vapor that Eugene DiSarro tried when he decided to stop smoking cigarettes for good over a decade ago.
DiSarro, a high-level amateur golfer in Rhode Island, had a bad smoking habit with the ability to puff through a pack of cigarettes before finishing a round of 18 holes. The money added up and the smell of tobacco smoke lingered on everything he owned.
After a fellow smoker offered him a drag of a vape pen – a battery-powered device that heats a liquid often containing nicotine to create an inhalable aerosol – DiSarro went to White Horse Vapor in North Providence the next day and never smoked a cigarette again.
“The vape was game-changing,” DiSarro said. “Forget about the money; it got the cigarettes out of my hand.”
But he hasn’t stepped into the shop since December.
That’s because the state has banned flavored vape products as of Jan. 1, and the businesses that rely on the sale of electronic nicotine delivery system products – or ENDS – have seen steep declines in sales in recent weeks because people such as DiSarro have stopped buying.
Health officials and supporters of the legislation have hailed the ban as a victory, citing data that indicates nicotine-carrying flavored vape products are used in high numbers by youngsters and pose significant health risks.
But some shop owners say the ban is killing their businesses and potentially hundreds of other stores that depend on vape sales.
At White Horse Vapor, daily sales have dropped 85% to 90% since the popular flavored vapes were outlawed, according to owner Dino Baccari. The 2,000-square-foot shop on Mineral Spring Avenue has shrunk to 30 square feet, and there are about 20 or so items remaining on the shelves now.
“It’s all we sell,” Baccari said of vape products. “It’s all we’ve ever committed to and it’s kind of all we know.”
More than a month before the ban went into effect, two local players in the industry, Sunshine Vape LLC and Vaporetti LLC, filed a federal lawsuit against several state agencies and sought a restraining order to delay the law.
Their request for the order was denied by a federal judge in December, but the lawsuit to overturn the ban is proceeding, although the next hearing hasn’t been scheduled.
Rhode Island’s ban on flavored vape products actually dates back to October 2019, when then-Gov. Gina M. Raimondo issued an executive order temporarily prohibiting the sale of flavored vapes in the interest of protecting youths from health risks.
The order became permanent in March 2020, but Sunshine Vape and Vaporetti claim in their lawsuit that the R.I. Department of Health never enforced the measure and sales continued for nearly five years.
The public health concerns didn’t go away, however.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that young people use ENDS products more than any other tobacco product, although trends have been on the decline in recent years. The 2024 Rhode Island Youth Risk Behavioral Survey reported that 16.5% of high school students used ENDS products in the previous 30 days.
That’s why the R.I. Office of the Attorney General said it was pleased when U.S. District Court Judge Mary S. McElroy denied the request for a temporary restraining order.
AG spokesperson Timothy Rondeau said the ban on flavored vape products is “aimed at protecting kids from the harmful effects of nicotine and that had already been in effect by regulation for nearly five years.
“We applaud the decision and look forward to continuing our defense of this important ban,” he said.
The lawsuit argues that the vape law violates the U.S. Constitution, infringing upon the 14th Amendment guaranteeing equal protection because the ban treats the sellers of flavored ENDS products differently than vendors of cannabinoid vape products and flavored ENDS products not containing nicotine or tobacco.
“I don’t really believe it’s about protecting kids when we have those laws in place,” said Darin Tripoli, owner of Sunshine Vape, which has locations in South Kingstown, Warwick and Providence. “It’s their failure to protect kids, and the good actors are paying the price, and the adults who used to have access to these products for 15 to 20 years no longer can.”
The lawsuit says ENDS products made up more than 70% of the sales for Sunshine Vape and Vaporetti, which has a store in East Providence. The businesses say they paid more than $898,000 in state taxes in the last four years.
Currently, all refillable ENDS products are taxed at a flat rate of 10% while single-use products are taxed at 50 cents per milliliter of liquid. Because the state still allows the sale of tobacco and menthol options but at a higher tax rate, Baccari finds the argument surrounding protecting youths from tobacco and nicotine products to be invalid.
“It proves the point that the products aren’t bad – you just don’t want a certain audience gravitating to them. And that’s fine, but just put them in an ultra-controlled environment,” he said.
Vape shop owners say they’ve been told by their customers that they’ll seek products in Connecticut or drive to New Hampshire, where there are no regulations on flavored ENDS products. Massachusetts has similar laws as Rhode Island.
Tripoli says Sunshine Vape’s revenue has sunk by about 95% since Jan. 1 and his inventory has dropped from 2,000 products to 20. Now he’s worried he soon won’t be able to pay his lease payments, and he’s concerned about his employees as sales decline.
As for his customers, Tripoli says he believes vapes are a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes.
“I specialize in extending people’s lives and it is so much harder to work under these conditions,” he said. “The longer this goes, the more people are likely to smoke cigarettes.”
