The last uh public safety and livable neighborhoods committee meeting of the year, and we're happy to have you.

So at this time, um I just want to acknowledge that all committee members, um, Vice Chair Bree, Councilmember Moreno, Councilmember Kate are present along with the mayor's office, the city attorney's office, uh the IBA's office, even I can barely see you from here.

Uh we're all here.

Um and at this time I'll entertain a motion to approve the committee actions of the October 23rd, 2018 meeting.

I have a motion by Councilmember Moreno and a second by Councilmember Kate.

All in favor?

Any opposed?

Okay.

Passes unanimously.

And now we will move to non-agenda public comment.

Um we do the setup, obviously is a little bit different, but we do have a stand up here, and we are going to give uh members two minutes to to comment on things that are not on the agenda.

And so we will uh start with uh Ivy Wells and then continue on with Manuel Andrada.

So if you could kind of come to the front, we call your name, be great.

Thank you.

You have two minutes.

Good evening.

Um first of all, I'd like to thank you for letting me speak on an issue I care so greatly about.

My name is Ivy Wells, and I am a ninth grader at Mission Bay High School.

And I am here today speaking about the youth vaping epidemic.

Just end to stress that flavors hook kids.

I have a little sister at home who is four years old, which means pretty much everything goes into her mouth.

If she were to come into contact with e-liquid, I'm pretty sure she'd explore further and would what and would wound and excuse me, and would wind up consuming it.

In the past six years, over 4,000 emergency room cases related to e-liquids among children under the age of five years old were treated in the U.S.

The amount of access children have to flavored tobacco products is far too high.

In your average convenience store, like 7-Eleven or AMPM, which are found everywhere in San Diego, um, cigarettes and other non-flavored tobacco products are usually found in a glass case or behind the um cashier.

However, brightly colored and with color full self with fun designs um to flavored tobacco products are right at children's eye level and are close enough to grab.

In conclusion, I'm here that we I am here to ask that we ban tobacco flavored tobacco products in San Diego.

Other large cities in California, such as Sacramento and Los Angeles have already made the change.

We need you, our San Diego councilmen, to protect us, our peers, and our younger siblings.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um we do have quite a few speakers uh on this one uh on this one item, so we're gonna have to limit you to one minute just based on the number of speakers.

There are several people that are not speaking.

I'm sorry?

There are several people that are they wish not to speak, just to point out they wrote it on top of.

All right, well, I'll give you two minutes and I'll check that.

Thank you while you're speaking.

Uh well, good afternoon, uh council members.

My name is Manuel Andrade.

I'm a community organizer from say San Diego.

I've been working on tobacco prevention for the last 13 years.

Uh thank you for the opportunity uh for letting me speak.

I'm also a resident of uh District 9 and District 4 as I leave.

I have the corner word device uh at the two districts.

I'm here today to talk to you about um the e-cigarette use epidemic.

As you know, I met with you uh with a few of you about this issue.

I want to give you some data from the uh 2015 risk youth behavioral survey and results show that 22.6% of nine graders uh uh currently vape or uh use the vape product within the last 30 days of that survey.

Voice in 11 grade reports staggering craze of 31.4% versus 19.6 percent of females.

Um as the grade goes up, these goes up.

Twelfth grade, uh the roles switch where women are vaping more than boys.

Um we are uh funded from a Prop 99.

Within the last 30 days, we were able to uh reduce smoking rates on youth, uh high school youth uh from 28 percent to less than seven percent, and that has totally changed with these new cigarette vaping uh epidemic.

Uh the industry is not taking advantage of not being regulated.

Uh they are creating more potent and addicted uh nicotine products.

They use slavers and marketing uh to do that.

Um here again to ask you to please protect our youth.

youth uh high school youth uh from twenty eight percent to less than seven percent and that has totally changed with these new cigarette vaping uh epidemic uh the industry is not taking advantage of not being regulated uh they are creating more potent ad and addicted uh nicotine products they use flavors and marketing uh to do that um same thing I'm here again to ask you to please protect our youth um we I think we provided uh few ordinances from San Diego uh I mean from the San Francisco uh Los Angeles and Sacramento hopefully you look at it and uh take this very important decision remember there's uh several people in the hospital right now with uh here in San Diego with uh severe lung damage thank you very much and um see you soon thank you thank you very much Chris Assault is next uh following uh Chris will be Mario Marmolejo uh good morning my name is Chris Cole and I am uh resident of City Heights at a student at Hoover High School.

I'm also a youth leader and I co-chair the program called Advocates for Change Today Act where we raise awareness about the usage of alcohol and tobacco products.

Right now we are working on a campaign called Escape the Vape where where we raise awareness about the effects of vape products and e-cigarettes and we denormalize those um the usage of those products every day is this growth through social media I see friends, peers smoking I mean posting about uh smoking a blunt or using e-cigarette products um and every day last year I would see people coming into class high and no one would say anything about it.

Um there's a supermarket and a smoke shop called El Guapo right across the street from my um from my school and I I want to know why it's it's placed there um there are many retailers um that sells vaping products and on every block what I want from the city council is to close the retailer that is across the street from my school and to explain to me why there are so many retailers that sell vape vaping products in my community um I have um five posters that I would like to share with you about the the e-cigarette campaign escape the vape and the 2015 youth risk behavior survey results ranging from ninth grade through twelfth grade if that's okay.