Washington Smoke Free Association

01/24/2025

LEGISLATIVE ALERT!

We now have a flavor ban bill HB1203 and a registry bill HB1534 that will be heard on 1/31/25 at 8am.

Need everyone to encourage fellow store owners, employees and customers to put in as CON on both bills.

We need to fill the page with our opposition to this bill. If you are a store owner, please put your business name and title.

Testimony will be done by a panel selected by Sara Stewart, our industry lobbyist.

This system is used as a roster to show who has registered and wishes to state their position on a bill. The information you provide will be made available to legislative committee members and staff of the committee, and will be included in the legislative record for bill and meeting archival purpos...

11/12/2024

Hello everyone, we are rapidly approaching the upcoming legislative session and as many of you know, we are planning on having a bill that we push to have flavored va**ng products only available in 21+ stores.

To that end, the work our lobbyists is not free and while many of us have been faithfully donating, we are having challenges in ensuring we can meet our obligations.

I don't enjoy posts like these asking for our store owners to assist us in our efforts to lobby on behalf of our industry, but without the assistance of Sara and Tony, we would not still be in business in this state.

We need the financial support to ensure we can lobby on behalf of our industry. All funds donated go directly to paying the lobbyists and nothing else. Many of us have donated significant amounts of time when needed but having a dedicated team working on our behalf has been invaluable to our efforts in ensuring we are able to continue to be at the forefront of Harm Reduction.

I personally have my stores on autopayment, so I don't have to remember to make a monthly donation. For the record, Fatboy V***rs has been donating $250 per month per store (4 Stores) for the past 4.5 years.

This has been one of the best investments for our business and industry as evidenced by our ability to stop legislation over the past 5 years.

Please take a moment and help us keep fighting on behalf of our great industry.

02/11/2022

2-11-22 Legislative Update

All I have to say right now is we are all about unicorns 🦄 and rainbows 🌈.

No news is awesome news.

Have a prosperous weekend.

11/04/2021

This makes me smile. Hold the line on ni****ne taxes Manchin.

“"With where we are right now, a tax on ni****ne? That doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever." -- , sending a clear message to House Democrats that the new tax on ni****ne products needs to go. https://t.co/wngIuxQL7R (at 6:15 pm Eastern) ”

11/02/2021

11-1-21 Update

Hello everyone, just a quick update on current status.

The potential federal tax on to***co and ni****ne was removed from the last draft of the BBB bill being debated in Congress, we believe it will not be included in the final draft.

The FDA has been taking body blows from the 28 lawsuits filed regarding the PMTA process and so far 5 have received temporary stays. I have to say some of the judges opinions are quite humorous to read.

We are also gearing up for the upcoming legislative session and another battle on our hands from the usual suspects. We expect a flavor ban bill but in a short session, it will be challenging.

Tony and Sara (our paid lobbyists) are keeping on top of the latest legislatively and working on building support for our industry. The only way we can continue to have them working on behalf is via store owners making donations to WASFA.

All our funds we receive are allocated to paying for our lobbyists, which is critical to our success.

If you are a store owner, please step up and support our State Organization by making monthly donations, our future depends on it.

09/23/2021

Well worth the time to see the co-founder of the American V***r Manufacturer Association make a presentation at the Global To***co Ni****ne Forum and To***co (GTFN) make a presentation about the state of va**ng in the USA.

07/13/2021

Hello Vaper Store Owners and Users.

It has been awhile since we have last had an update, but we have been busy. While this legislative session was successful for us, rest assured, they will be back at it in January preparing to try and regulate us out of existence.

To that end, we have retained Tony Sermonti and Sara Stewart to work on our behalf, and that does require a significant investment in funds to keep them on our team.

As someone who has spent a lot of time both lobbying and testifying, I can give you a firsthand account about the work they do to protect our industry.

I can tell you the last 8 months have been on a upward trend and am appreciative of our growth, allowing us to keep and hire more employees and also helping so many adults stop smoking combustible ci******es.

This leads me to bring up 3 key things that I am asking all store owners to consider:

1) Are you donating on a monthly basis (recurring payment) to allow us to pay for our lobbying team. I personally have my stores and e-liquid manufacturing contributing $250 per location each and every month ($15,000 per year) to help offset the costs we incur. If you are not contributing, why not, even if you cannot afford the suggested level.

2) Would you like to be on the Board for WASFA? We are looking for store owners who can spend a few hours each month to help guide our decisions and also to do outreach to legislators, along with recruiting other store to become members.

3) Can you host or be involved in local legislative meetings that our lobbying team will be working on arranging? We want to engage in outreach during the off session time, so when we need to engage during the session, key legislators know who you are and what our industry is doing to help adults.

I don't want to be be negative, but we will be starting to list who has been contributing so everyone is aware of those who are making the commitment to support the industry in the state.

More info to come, but feel free to reach out to myself, Jacob Johnson or Margo Ross if you are interested in being involved on a deeper level.

04/03/2021

Legislative Update - 4-2-2021 - Day 82 of 105.

Today was the deadline for bills to cross over to their opposite house related to fiscal (which our bill is).

It did not get out of committee and now we wait for the session to wind down. The good news is the budgets that the House and Senate are moving on do not contain any provision regarding the revenue from HB1550.

Basically, it is unlikely this bill will move this year. However, until the gavel bangs down to end the session, we won’t let our guard down.

03/19/2021

WA BILL HEARING NOTICE - HB1550 Hearing 3-23-2021 at 1:30PM

This bill is a 45% retail tax (takes away the per ml tax) on all v***r hardware and e-liquid. This was introduced by Gerry Pollet and they are having the first public hearing on this bill.

We need your support in a couple of ways:

Follow this link to sign in as Con on the bill: this lets them know we are aware and watching: https://app.leg.wa.gov/CSIRemote/House

You will need to select Finance as the committee and the meeting date is March 23, 20201 at 1:30pm. Then you can select HB1550 and put your position on the record.

If you would like to testify against the bill, follow this link: https://app.leg.wa.gov/CSIRemote/Testimony/Form?chamber=House&meetingFamilyId=28906&agendaItemFamilyId=141866&remoteLocationId=52&testify=True

Please note that you may only get 2 minutes or less. We do have a number of national people and some local ones who will be testifying.

PLEASE SHARE THE LINK WITH PEOPLE TO SIGN IN AS CON ON THE BILL. This is critical we have a huge list of people on record as opposed to the bill.

This system is used as a roster to show who has registered and wishes to testify remotely. Those who have registered for remote testimony will be emailed a link to the meeting. Each link is unique to the registrant and is restricted to one participant. Registrants are prohibited from sharing links.

03/10/2021

Legislative Update - 3-10-2021 (Session Day 59)

Nothing really exciting to report, other than Tony and Sara have been having some conversations with House and Senate leadership and there seems to be no momentum on Representative Diacetyl's HB1550. We have a lot of allies who will give us warning if it starts to show any sign of life.

No hearings are scheduled as of this morning, no fiscal note has been created. At this point it seems that it is dead, however, since this is now a "fiscal" bill only, it could be pulled at any time.

The likelihood of the bill moving at all decreases every day. At this moment, we can all focus on our businesses.

If we need to move into action, we will be ready to respond.

Have a great week!

02/12/2021

URGENT UPDATE:

Our favorite rep has been working to submit a revised HB1345 and is hoping to sneak it into executive session on Monday in the Commerce and Gaming Committee. The only change is that he is not banning flavors and removed the menthol cigarette ban, along with minor changes in the licensing component for manufacturers.

WE NEED EVERYONE TO EMAIL THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS and ask them to reject HB1345 substitute as it would cripple the adult v***r store community. We don't need to go into details as to the specific components we dislike as we have done that through out lobbyists, but just need a flood of emails from store owners and customers. This is very important as the last committee meeting is on Monday.

Below is a list you can cut and past to send to the and use the subject line: REJECT HB1345.

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

THANK YOU FOR HELPING OUR ADULT V***R COMMUNITY!

02/01/2021

HB1345 Flavor Ban Bill for Va**ng. Please share this far and wide. Those who want to put in a "Con" on the bill, the directions are below. You can also register to speak if you so desire and please review this flyer for tips on what to say.