Sting operation for flavored tobacco vapes

RENSSELAER COUNTY, N.Y. ( NEWS10 ) — Flavored tobacco vapes were outlawed in New York back in 2020. So, why are New Yorkers still able to get the vapes? NEWS10 goes on a sting operation with one Capital Region Sheriff’s office to learn more about the efforts that are being taken, there.

“No matter what their age is, flavored vapes are illegal,” stated Rensselaer County Sheriff, Kyle Bourgault. Monday night the Sheriff’s Office went out on a sting operation looking to remove vapes from county store shelves.

“You did just sell to a minor, flavor vapes. Flavored nicotine vapes are illegal in New York State,” said a deputy on a previous sting back in April. But, after just a few stops into the night, the sheriff’s team had a bite. They found illegal vapes with the help of their informants. “The reason that we’re really targeting these stores is not because of them on their shelves it’s because of who they’re targeting and that’s the youth,” said the sheriff.  He said he has been working on getting rid of the vapes since he took office. But he says there are a couple of things that can make that challenging.  “For one, everybody wants them. Number two, they make a lot of money off them.”

He says his deputies work on a list of locations throughout the county looking for them. The undercover team has a list of stores of everyone that’s allowed to sell the tobacco products. “They give us the list and it’s over 200 at this point. And we just go through and what we’ll do is hit all the stores. I mean we haven’t gotten through them all,” said Bourgault.

However, some make it to the top of their list. “If somebody is selling it and we know it, we want to make sure they stop doing it,” said the sheriff.

He says that under his watch, the deputies have confiscated nearly 19 thousand vapes and have collected almost $70,000 in fines. They have made over 75 inspections at locations suspected of sales and 25 of those turned out to be violations. “We wind up removing the vapes because each vape that we seize, we’re able to put a sanction on that and get a stipulation against them. So, the department of health will want to count how many different vapes that we took from each location and then they decide the stipulation or the fine so to speak, on that.”

Bourgault says the health department is responsible for enforcement and they’ve reached out to him and his deputies for help. “The Department of Health is ultimately responsible for the enforcement. The Department of Health does not have seizure power, so to speak. So, that’s when they asked us to come in and do the seizure part of it.”

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