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City of St. Anthony <br />CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION <br />Minutes <br />September 10, 2024 <br />Present: <br />Mayor & Council: <br />Mayor Wendy Webster, Councilmembers Lona Doolan, Nadia Elnagdy, Jan Jenson and Thomas Randle. <br />Absent: <br />Staff: <br />City Manager Charlie Yunker and ANSR Representatives Katie Engman and Molly Schmidtke. <br />Call to Order: <br />Mayor Wendy Webster called the Work Session to order at 5:30 p.m. <br />1.Approval of CC WS Meeting Minutes <br />A.August 27, 2024, Council Work Session Meeting Minutes <br />Motion by Councilmember Jenson, seconded by Councilmember Doolan, to approve the City Council <br />Work Session Meeting Minutes of August 27, 2024, as presented. <br />Motion carried 5-0. <br />2.Work Session Topics <br />A.Prohibiting the Sale of Flavored Tobacco Discussion <br />Ms. Katie Engman and Ms. Molly Schmidtke appeared before the City Council. They are representing the <br />Association for Nonsmokers – MN. The ANSR is dedicated to reducing the human and economic costs of <br />commercial tobacco, nicotine and other drug use in Minnesota. Their core commitments are: <br />To project young Minnesotans from a lifetime of addiction. <br />To ensure that all Minnesotans can breathe clean, smoke-free air everywhere. <br />To reduce health inequities and other disparities in relation to commercial tobacco, nicotine, <br />and other drugs. <br />The tobacco industry spends nearly $1 million per hour marketing tobacco products. Commercial <br />tobacco is still a problem. In Minnesota, one in seven 11th graders uses e-cigarettes, and 90 percent of <br />those students use flavored e-cigarettes. Commercial tobacco use sets kids up for a lifetime of nicotine <br />addiction and serious health conditions like heart disease and cancer. The tobacco industry targets <br />Black, LGBTQ+, American Indians, and young people and spends more than $100 million a year <br />marketing their products in Minnesota. <br />All Minnesotans pay the price for tobacco’s harm. Smoking costs the State over $9 billion a year: more <br />than $4.7 billion in excess healthcare costs and $4.7 billion in lost productivity. Commercial tobacco use <br />remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease, taking the lives of more than 6,300 <br />Minnesotans each year. Every time Big Tobacco addicts another generation of kids to smoking, they put <br />all taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars in healthcare costs to treat tobacco-related diseases.