CRA Files Comment in Corte Madera Tobacco Ban Proposal

September 17, 2026 / Cody Carden

The Town of Corte Madera has introduced a ban on all tobacco purchases in town. CRA filed a public comment, available below, urging a narrow, age-gated exemption anchored to the Mehta Definition — a loophole-proof standard that exempts the one tobacco category with no youth footprint while leaving every other restriction intact. While we were disappointed to see the measure pass, it is critical to continue to fight these proposals while they are at the municipal level. As we have seen in Europe and Australia, these policies can grow into national-scale problems quite rapidly.

Dear Mayor Thomas and Members of the Council:

Cigar Rights of America (CRA) is a national organization representing adult premium cigar consumers and the small businesses that serve them. We write regarding the ordinance introduced by the Council to prohibit the retail sale of tobacco and nicotine products in Corte Madera.

CRA’s comments are limited to one narrow issue: whether premium cigars should be treated identically to the products that have prompted the Council’s concern about youth nicotine use.

We want to affirm what animates this proposal: the Council’s members have voiced a serious and legitimate concern about youth nicotine use. That concern is one CRA shares. We support strong age-verification requirements and youth-access prevention measures, and we recognize the reality behind the record before you — reports of nicotine pouches at local high schools and county data showing that roughly half of eleventh graders have tried vaping. Those are real problems that deserve a real response.

We join Total Wine & More in respectfully asking the Council not to adopt Option 1B as currently written, but instead to direct staff to return with a narrowly tailored exemption for premium cigars, meeting the federal court’s definition, with sales limited to adults age 21 and older by licensed retailers subject to age-verification requirements.

Premium cigars are not the product driving the crisis this ordinance is meant to address.

The youth-usage motivating this ordinance centers overwhelmingly on products such as vaping devices and nicotine pouches. Premium handmade cigars have markedly different patterns of use, and share none of those characteristics. They are sold individually and in humidor-controlled specialty settings at a price-premium, and consumed almost exclusively by older adults with substantially lower frequency use than other cigar categories. The evidence on this point is not anecdotal. The FDA-commissioned 2022 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report on the patterns of use and health effects of premium cigars found that premium cigar consumers are overwhelmingly older adults who use the product infrequently — often only occasionally rather than daily. The FDA’s own Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study data, updated two months ago, has consistently shown youth use of premium cigars to be somewhere between statistically undetectable and zero.

The relevant federal evidence therefore supports a much narrower conclusion: youth use of premium cigars is exceptionally uncommon. Exempting this carefully defined category would not require the Council to retreat from its efforts to address the actual risks appearing in local schools. In fact, exempting premium cigars would not undermine a single youth-protection goal this ordinance is designed to achieve, because premium cigars are not the vector of the harm. CRA was a lead plaintiff in the litigation that resulted in the vacatur of the FDA’s regulatory authority over premium cigars. In the course of that litigation, the court examined the scientific record and concluded that premium cigars are meaningfully different from other tobacco products in their patterns of use and associated risk, especially the risk to young people. This is why we urge the Council, if it adopts an exemption, to anchor to the definition the decision set forth — what we refer to as the Mehta Definition (named after the authoring judge).

The Mehta Definition describes a cigar that: (1) is wrapped in whole tobacco leaf; (2) contains a 100 percent leaf tobacco binder; (3) contains at least 50 percent long filler tobacco by weight; (4) is handmade or hand rolled, using no machinery apart from simple tools; (5) has no filter, non-tobacco tip, or non-tobacco mouthpiece; (6) has no characterizing flavor other than tobacco; (7) contains only tobacco, water, and vegetable gum, with no other ingredients or additives; and (8) weighs more than six pounds per 1,000 units.

This definition is clear, consistent, and – as proven by the FDA over the last three years – still provides a workable definition for Corte Madera’s enforcement purposes, drawing a clean and judicially established line between premium cigars and the mass-market products the Council is concerned about. Adopting it allows the Council to distinguish a narrowly defined product category with exceptionally low youth usage, while leaving the ordinance’s treatment of all other tobacco and nicotine products unchanged. The Mehta Definition also contains no price floor and therefore requires no future amendment to account for inflation—a durable standard the Town can adopt once and rely on.

In addition, a total sales prohibition on premium cigars would have negative consequences – albeit unintended – for the town of Corte Madera.

The ordinance restricts commercial sales, but the possession and use of these products by adults remains entirely legal. Corte Madera’s adult residents who enjoy an occasional premium cigar will not stop; they will simply purchase in Larkspur, Mill Valley, or elsewhere nearby and bring the product home. The practical effect, for premium cigars specifically, is not a reduction in adult consumption but a transfer of that commerce — and the local oversight and age-verification that comes with a licensed local retailer — to neighboring jurisdictions. An age-gated local exemption keeps that activity within a controlled, licensed, community environment rather than pushing it across the town line where Corte Madera has no visibility at all.

Premium cigar consumers are law-abiding adults purchasing a legal product that the federal courts have recognized as categorically distinct. A narrow exemption respects their choices without compromising any of the Council’s objectives for the young people of Corte Madera. We do not ask the Council to reconsider its broader aims. We ask only that, in pursuing them, it draws the line where the science and the courts have already drawn it.

CRA and its members would welcome the opportunity to serve as a resource to the Council and staff as you refine this ordinance. Thank you for your consideration and for your attention to the well-being of the community.

Respectfully submitted,