Judge Blocks NY Ban on Certain Flavored Vaping Products

Quinn: 1800law1010, 1800law1010.com. Paul Harding from Martin, Harding & Mazzotti on the phone.

Cantara: Morning, Paul.

Paul: Hey, good morning, guys.

Cantara: What’s shaking, buddy?

Paul: I know we’re picking up about two minutes or a minute and a half per day, so kind of counting that out, yeah, going in the right direction.

Quinn: I didn’t know that. That’s great news.

Cantara: “That’s glass is half full,” kind of guy right there.

Quinn: I love that. Every day another two minutes.

Cantara: It’s not us, Paul, talking vapes every time you come on the show. It’s that vaping is in the news.

Paul: I’ve seen a pattern.

Cantara: So, the latest piece is a judge here in New York saying that the public health and planning council overstepped its authority and it’s not up to her to keep this ban in place. Explain how this all unfolded for us.

Man: We got a right to make money with our vape.

Paul: Yeah. Well, you know, we all know the vape is in the news a lot and we know that there’s all kinds of health risks associated with it. Now, here, the governor went ahead and did a thing called an executive order and said, “Guys, we’re gonna limit the ability to sell certain vaping products,” and the judge just came out and said, Judge Cholakis, and she just said, “Hey, maybe, but this is not the right way to do it.” Executive order is something like state of emergency. We’ve got floods coming, something that we need to do in a emergency fashion and she felt although important, not exigent. Therefore, kind of saying, “No, we’re not gonna…

Quinn: Non-specific respiratory ailments.

Paul: …enforce this. We need to go to the legislature.”

Cantara: Okay, so can the governor chime in and make it a health epidemic state of emergency? Can he do that?

Paul: Well, you know, again, he can, but probably this decision, kind of sending the message, this needs to be legislatively corrected if at all, so we’ve gotta go through the old process of all the people we elected to decide whether or not it’s something that we wanna do and then the judge…judge, the governor can sign the law [inaudible 00:01:51].

Quinn: January 8th, Cuomo said, he assured me that marijuana will be legal in 2020.

Cantara: Who said that, the governor?

Quinn: The governor. The governor assured me. I read it. It was right there in the newspaper.

Paul: Yeah.

Cantara: How confident should Quinn feel about that kind of statement?

Paul: Well, I think it’s happening. You know, we start giving dates and years, who knows, but sure, I think…

Quinn: We need money.

Paul: Everyone’s saying this year. Everyone’s saying this year. And, you know, you start losing out on tax revenue because the states all around us are falling, they’re producing, and therefore the industry of production is one that really the governor is focusing on that we need to be on the forefront of that, because we have great soil, we have the ability to do it here, and so they think this could be a marijuana-growing capital.

Cantara: You’re talking about the daylight we’re adding and great soil. You’re a little bit of a hippie there, Paul.

Paul: Something’s going on with me this morning. Yeah, it must be, yeah.

Quinn: I love it though. New York State vegetables are highly sought after around the country.

Cantara: Back to the judge blocking the New York ban on flavored vaping products. From a law standpoint, this is basically the judge telling the politicians, “Get to work,” right?

Paul: Yeah, “Do your job. Not the governor’s decision to go and unilaterally say, ‘This is not what the public needs. We need the public to decide what the public needs, and so go back and create a law and then we’ll enforce it.'”

Quinn: Oh, well, you know, we’ll see, we’ll see. I mean, you can’t count on anything these these days when it comes to legislation and red tape and all that, but we’ll work it out. We always do.

Paul: We do.

Quinn: We do. We always end up finding a way.

Cantara: All right, Paul. Thanks for explaining that this morning.

Paul: You are welcome.

Quinn: There he goes. Paul Harding, Martin, Harding & Mazzotti, 1800law1010, 1800law1010.com.