JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Action News Jax is digging into a state law that hasn\u2019t been enforced locally at all, even though it could bring in thousands in fines and keep illegal vape products out of the hands of children. <\/p>\n
Investigator Emily Turner dug into the numbers and found a complete lack of action on the local level when it comes to this new legal tool.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n She visited dozens of smoke shops around Jacksonville. In every one she entered, she found at least one vape product on the shelves that wasn\u2019t allowed under a new state law. <\/p>\n After fighting the state for the public records, she found that the state agency in charge of enforcing that law hasn\u2019t written a single citation or fine.<\/p>\n The law was touted as a way to protect children from vape products targeted directly at them. <\/p>\n RELATED: <\/b>Action News Jax Investigates: Illegal Vape Sales<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Former state Sen. Keith Perry sponsored the bill and was adamant about that. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s almost sad that we as legislators had to look at and say, \u2018no, no, you\u2019re not going to be able to do this to children,\u2019 and try to stop that,\u201d Perry said.<\/p>\n The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and it had only five dissenting votes in the House. <\/p>\n It put the Office of Attorney General in charge of creating a list of illegal vape products and established penalties for selling them: a fine of up to $1,000 dollars per item, per day, if it remained on the shelf and a first-degree misdemeanor if it\u2019s knowingly sold.<\/p>\n READ: <\/b>City passes ban on smoking and vaping on Jacksonville Beach<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Those mandates became enforceable March first but locally that\u2019s not happening.<\/p>\n Though Action News Jax found banned vapes openly on sale in shop after shop, public records show there hasn\u2019t been a single citation or fine issued in several of our local counties — Duval, Nassau, Clay and St Johns.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not the outcome Perry said he fought for. <\/p>\n He said it was \u201ca lot of work to get it done and get passed and signed by the governor. And then to find out there\u2019s no enforcement? Frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n State Rep. Angie Nixon (D-Jacksonville) voted against the law and she said this is exactly why. <\/p>\n \u201cDPBR and the folks who would be inspecting these types of things. Based on the fact that they are already stretched thin, I just felt like this would not have happened and it would have not been super useful and like, lo and behold, they\u2019re not even doing it,\u201d Nixon said.<\/p>\n DBPR is the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, in charge of inspecting everything from salons to smoke shops. It is the agency that should be enforcing the law, but hasn\u2019t been.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax had to involve attorneys just to get the public records. When we did, it showed no record of a single fine. DBPR did not respond to our request for an interview, but we did ask Attorney General James Uthmeier if he was satisfied with the enforcement so far.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not,\u201d Uthmeier said. \u201cWe\u2019re still looking for more resources to enforce. You know, this is a brand new policy … we got to work with other agencies that have authorities to properly get these things off the shelves and levy fines where appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n Uthmeier said his office is actually working on a new list of vaping products that will be illegal. He said that amended list will \u201cbe out shortly.\u201d<\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Action News Jax is digging into a state law that hasn\u2019t been enforced locally at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":248351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[15619,5229,33767,127685,131886,131885,131884,3188,723,834,17819,11561,7310,131887,131883,425,1534,16854,86405,290,131882,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-248350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news_jack","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-angie_nixon","11":"tag-attorney_general","12":"tag-dbpr","13":"tag-department_of_business_and_professional","14":"tag-dvpr","15":"tag-fl","16":"tag-florida","17":"tag-general","18":"tag-house","19":"tag-jack","20":"tag-jacksonville","21":"tag-james_uthmayer","22":"tag-keith_perry","23":"tag-local","24":"tag-perry","25":"tag-senate","26":"tag-senator","27":"tag-state","28":"tag-tonight_action_news","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-united-states-of-america","31":"tag-unitedstates","32":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115252455559168393","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}