Youth Tobacco Ban Survives Massachusetts High Court Scrutiny

A Massachusetts town’s prohibition on the sale of tobacco to people born on or after Jan. 1, 2000, can move forward after the state’s Supreme Judicial Court ruled that it passes constitutional muster.

The decision handed down on Friday said the “birthdate classification” set by the town of Brookline “is rationally related to the town’s legitimate interest in mitigating tobacco use overall and in particular by minor.”

The justices said that “line drawing,” as Brookline did by setting a precise cut-off date, is a “legislative necessity” and “does not, without more, make a law unconstitutional.”

The ban, which currently mainly impacts Generation Z, “neither burdens a fundamental right nor discriminates based on a suspect classification,” such as a prototypical minority group, the opinion said.

Tobacco and e-cigarette vendors sued the Boston suburb after it approved the ban in 2020 to combat what it said was rampant nicotine addiction.

Vendors argued the ban arbitrarily discriminates against those born after the cut-off date, violating the equal protection guarantees in the state constitution.

The vendors also argued the ban is preempted by a state law that prohibits those under 21 from purchasing tobacco products.

“State laws and local ordinances and bylaws can and often do exist side by side,” the opinion said. Brookline’s ban “falls within the type of local law limiting or prohibiting the sale of tobacco products expressly permitted” by the state’s tobacco law, and it is not preempted merely because it is more strict, the court found.

The case is Six Brothers, Inc. vs. Town of Brookline, Mass., No. SJC-13434, 3/8/24.