The City Council gave initial support Tuesday night to swift regulations that would ban the sales of flavored tobacco, e-cigarettes and related paraphernalia in Pleasanton, hoping to establish a strict ordinance to help curb teen vaping in the community.

Council members went against some less-stringent restrictions recommended by city staff, supporting the dozens of youth and adult speakers advocating strongly for a full prohibition on sales of flavored tobacco and vapor products as opposed to a proposed partial ban that would still allow a handful of tobacco shops to sell those items to age-eligible adults.

They also expressed a desire to prevent Pleasanton from becoming a go-to destination for access to vape products in the Tri-Valley in light of more stringent regulations on sales approved in Livermore and Dublin.

"I unfortunately started smoking when I was 13 years old, and I didn't quit until 1997," Mayor Jerry Thorne said to open the council's final deliberations. "Today I have COPD and emphysema, and I have to use a nebulizer at least two to three times a week."

"So that is what that stuff will do to you, and I'm a good example of it," the mayor added. "I would give anything if the city councils and governments when I was growing up had the courage to do something really strong, and I hope this council has that same conviction."

"I really do believe that we have a responsibility to create an environment to support our families," Councilwoman Julie Testa said "They can't do it alone."

Because the council's decision deviated so much from the draft ordinance prepared by staff headed into the meeting, city staff requested more time to rewrite the proposed ordinance for a formal vote at a future meeting.

City Manager Nelson Fialho told the Weekly he expects the revised ordinance to be presented at one of the council's March meetings for a first reading. If approved then, the ordinance would return for final adoption two weeks later -- as part of a required two-meeting process.

The crux of the 3-1/2-hour public hearing Tuesday night centered on the differences between the proposal of the city's Youth Commission, which included an all-out ban, and the recommendation of city staff that they said aimed to strike a balance between limiting tobacco access and exposure for teens and not unfairly impacting existing businesses and adult customers.

The five-pronged ordinance originally proposed by city staff hinged in part on a key distinction between the types of businesses that sell tobacco products.

They suggested prohibiting flavored tobacco and vapor product sales at tobacco retailers, defined as businesses like grocery stores, gas stations and convenience stores in which tobacco sales are incidental to the main business (of which Pleasanton has 49).

They did, however, recommend allowing those sales to continue at tobacco stores, considered as a business in which 60% or more of its revenue is from tobacco product sales and store entry is restricted to adults-only. There are four such businesses on record in the city.

But all of the 32 student speakers at the council meeting -- a mix of middle- and high-schoolers -- and more than half of the 19 adult commenters strongly disagreed.

They argued a full prohibition on sales in Pleasanton storefronts was the best deterrent to youth access to vaping products. Even with age limits and other restrictions, teens are finding ways to acquire the highly addictive items from local stores, either themselves or via an adult proxy, they said.

The vaping critics' comments spanned the gamut, from lambasting flavors that entice youth like "Unicorn Tears" and "Cotton Candy" to the products mimicking the appearance of school items like pencils to their effect on young people's physical, mental and emotional health to vaping being trendy and a source of peer pressure in schools.

"It's just everywhere and an incredibly pervasive problem," Harvest Park Middle School student Ethan Han told the council.

"The main attraction here is the flavors," said Ashwin Sriram, a Hart Middle School student and Youth Commission member. "As an eighth-grader moving into high school, I want to make sure that this trend does not continue ... to make sure that a high school bathroom isn't labeled the 'JUUL Room' because people are known to vape inside."

"This is more than money ... This is lives at stake," added Tess Shotland, another youth commissioner. "Death that is preventable. I don't want to see my friends die. I would not like to see my friends die. And this something that is on your shoulders as the council. You can make it better."

"This is an issue that we need to address now," parent Jennifer Duncan said. "I realize that some people claim to use vaping devices as a smoking cessation device. The FDA has not approved that because the pros do not outweigh the cons. And for every one adult that stops smoking using a vape pen, 80 youth start."

"We're here tonight to urge Pleasanton to pass the same comprehensive policy so we can we show a united front in the fight against youth vaping," said Kristie Wang, co-founder of Flavors Addict Kids-Livermore.

The council did hear from a handful of adult speakers in support of allowing some form of flavored tobacco and vapor sales in Pleasanton, a mix of people who either had quit traditional cigarette smoking by switching to vaping or who operated an existing tobacco-selling business.

"I smoked for about 25 years ... this product saved my life, vape," said David Wilson, a 1999 Amador Valley High grad who described himself as a recovering addict with nine years clean.

"If we take this and ban all flavors and all sales, I'm probably going to go back to smoking because I am an addict and it's hard to deal with, but what we're not going to do is realize that all of these sales will go online ... and all you have to do is click, 'I am 21 years old,'" he added.

"I would lose a good vast proportion of my business," said Rick Kutler, who sells flavored pipe tobacco and cigars, but not vape products, at his Pleasanton tobacco shop. "What I ask is that all retail stores, tobacco stores, cigar stores are not bunched together. We have really complied, explicitly."

Still, the prohibition proponents far outweighed the vaping sales advocates.

"Vaping and smoking are one in the same," Livermore parent Paula Lorenz told the council toward the end of the two-hour-plus public comment period. "We have to do what we can for our kids to protect them from this product."

The council majority strongly sided with the full ban camp.

They voted unanimously to prohibit all sales of electronic smoking devices and related vaping paraphernalia throughout Pleasanton.

The vote to prohibit all sales of flavored tobacco, including menthol cigarettes, was 4-1 with Councilman Jerry Pentin in dissent, saying he supported allowing the four existing tobacco stores to continue those sales coupled with other strong city regulations to prevent underage transactions.

The three other aspects of the proposed ordinance garnered less attention and were supported by the council majority.

That included prohibiting new tobacco retailers and new tobacco stores within 1,000 feet of public schools, public parks and recreation facilities while existing retailers and stores within that distance could continue operating as grandfathered in. (With the two other bans, those businesses could only sell non-flavored tobacco.)

The fourth point would direct staff to develop and implement a new, strict tobacco retailer licensing program that would require all tobacco retailers and tobacco stores to obtain an annual permit from the city. They would then be subject to fines and permit revocation for sales violations.

The fifth aspect would formally prohibit anyone under 21 years old from possessing any tobacco product, subject to confiscation and diversion -- but no criminal penalties or fines.

Those provisions would be part of the overall revised ordinance scheduled to be presented to the City Council next month. The council may also talk that night about implementing minimum pack sizes and pricing for tobacco products, as suggested by the Youth Commission.