Juul in San Francisco: "We stay"

While San Francisco officials prepare to consider a bill suspending the sale of electronic cigarettes in the city, the CEO of Juul Labs – the controversial and local company that sells the majority of e-cigarettes in the United States – said that he was committed to keeping the company and its growing workforce in San Francisco.

"Yes, we are staying," Juul general manager Kevin Burns said Thursday during an interview with The Chronicle's editorial board. "San Francisco is our home. We want to be in San Francisco. We have 1,200 employees in San Francisco, a huge talent base in San Francisco. We want to be residents, and I hope we find a way to do it. "

The seat of Juul is located in the district of Dogpatch, Pier 70, which belongs to the city. But the growing society – which has been maltreated by city supervisors, one of whom has recently said he does not want Juul in town – is reportedly negotiating to buy another building.

Burns met with the bill's author, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, as well as members of the Supervisory Board to discuss ways to prevent miners from buying popular vaping devices and devices. Juul nicotine pods.

"We have not been able to mobilize our communities in San Francisco," Burns said. "We try to do a better job by involving our communities where the presence of our employees is important. … We are also concerned about the use of youth. It's not something we want from a moral base. "

Burns said that he is not robbing himself and that he would discourage a young person who does not already smoke cigarettes from taking a Juul. Burns, who joined Juul at the end of 2017, took a conciliatory tone, saying the company had not initially realized the extent of the youth's vaping problem, but that she saw federal health data indicating a rapid increase in the number of teenage ejaculations, she took steps to try. to stifle the trend.

In November, the company discontinued shipments of its flavored capsules – like popular mangoes and creams – to retail stores, and shut down its social media accounts. But that has hardly silenced the outcry of state attorneys general and public health officials, who continue to blame Juul for presenting his products in an appealing way for teens and young adults. Juul has long claimed that his products are intended for adult cigarette smokers, not young people.

Burns said Juul had offered to pay to install electronic scanning systems in San Francisco's 800 retail stores selling electronic cigarettes that would use age verification technology to block customer sales. under 21 years of age and limit each customer to two vaping devices and five packages of pods. (up to 20 pods in total) in one transaction. The system is currently being tested in 150 stores across the country, including 12 in San Francisco, and Burns has offered to provide the $ 3 to $ 5 million it would cost to install in all stores in San Francisco.

"I will pay for it and put it in San Francisco," Burns said. "We discussed it with the supervisory board and the city prosecutor. The answer was constructive.

The Herrera bill is due to be reviewed by the Public Safety and Neighborhood Safety Committee on Friday. If approved by the Supervisory Board, it will ban the sale of electronic cigarettes in San Francisco until the Food and Drug Administration has completed its review to ensure product safety. The e-cigarette companies have 2021 days to submit their applications to the federal agency.

Matt David, a spokesman for Juul, said the company was taking the time to conduct the necessary clinical and behavioral research before submitting the application. The process costs about $ 100 million, he said.

Juul wants to include in the November newsletter an initiative that would essentially cancel Herrera's legislation, if passed, by ensuring that e-cigarettes can continue to be sold in San Francisco. The ballot measure is designed to try to further restrict the sale of tobacco to minors, but most of these restrictions are already in effect under state law.

Critics of the tobacco industry say that Juul has used misleading language, trying to present the initiative as the last word of tobacco regulation in San Francisco by including the words "Comprehensive regulation of products-based The provisions of this initiative can only be changed by a vote. people."

Juul said that the voting measure, if passed, would prevent the supervisory board from enacting a ban on e-cigarettes in the future – without however canceling the tobacco laws already adopted by the city, such as ban on flavored tobacco voted last by voters. year. Nor would it prevent the city from adopting additional tobacco regulations, such as storing tobacco products in a mailbox in the stores, as long as these regulations do not constitute a prohibition.

David said that Juul was on the verge of obtaining the necessary signatures to qualify the measure for the vote.

"At the end of the day, we would prefer to work with the city to find a solution, but if we are to go to the polls, we will work with our coalition and continue this option," he said.

Burns acknowledged that Juul was partly responsible for the youth's vaping, but added that the company never wanted its products, which contain the addictive substance, nicotine, to be so popular with teenagers.

"We are of course partly responsible (for the vaping of young people). We have 80% of the market, how can we not be responsible? Said Burns. "I do not think that is the intention, but we are responsible and we must act in this direction."

He also cited the many criticisms of Juul's acceptance of a $ 12.8 billion investment by Altria, parent company of Philip Morris, saying it had hampered his attempts to collaborate with researchers and researchers. 'other people.

"Absolutely, it hurts our ability to partner with third parties … we knew that there would be compromises to make with that," Burns said.