Phil Guerin, the owner of Myxed Up Creations, a small tobacco, nicotine, and accessory shop that has been operating in Denver since 1992, is leading a fight among small business owners to send the city’s upcoming ban on flavored tobacco products to a vote in November’s election. Previously, the Denver City Council voted 11-1 to ban such products beginning March 18.
“We really are advocates for our customers and advocating for doing things in a safe way, and we’ve been able to really stay ahead of these trends,” Guerin said. “But we are not the problem, and we really regret being blamed for this whole situation and we are not big tobacco. We are family-owned businesses that are just trying to survive in an anti-small business climate that’s been created by municipal government.”
Guerin said he is working with other small business owners around the city, and they have filed the paperwork needed to circulate a petition that would delay the ban until voters could weigh in. He says they have already gathered more than 2,000 of the needed 9,494 valid signatures for the city’s election division to deem the petition sufficient.
“The greatest thing that’s happened is small businesses across the entire Denver city limits, we’ve all come together,” Guerin said. “Before, we were all kind of rivals and we were all competing against each other, and now we’ve all come together to really fight this misinformation and this ban.
“We think this will be on the ballot in November and we’re excited for a campaign, and we’re really excited to inform the public because there has been so much bad information put out there about this, [it] is really big tobacco doing this. It’s actually small business people that are being responsible and really trying to do the responsible thing and give adults the right to choose an alternative to smoking cigarettes.”
