Redding high school students call for tobacco ordinance enforcement
Students called on the Redding City Council to follow through on enforcement of a tobacco ordinance passed last year. Doing so, they said, would help address Shasta County’s high rate of teen tobacco use.
“Think about it this way, imagine your pencil breaks during class and your teacher doesn’t have a pencil sharpener,” said Angelique Turner, a sophomore at Enterprise High School as she spoke to the Redding City Council last night.
“You turn to the person sitting next to you and you ask, ‘Do you have an extra pencil I can borrow?’ Sometimes they say yes, and sometimes they say no. For many young people, accessing a vape can feel just as simple. If one person has access, it can quickly be shared with someone else.”
In 2023, the California Department Of Public Health found that Shasta County had the highest rate of teens with self-reported tobacco use in the state, at around 41%. That compares with a statewide average of about 6.4%, according to CDPH.
A local tobacco retail ordinance passed by Redding council members last year was intended to address the issue. To curb the use of tobacco products by minors, it requires tobacco retailers to pay an annual fee of about $1,176 in addition to the existing $265 state-mandated fee. The Redding ordinance also prohibits new tobacco retailers from operating within 600 feet of a K-12 school. Statewide, it’s already illegal to sell to minors or to sell any flavored tobacco products.
While the new ordinance could reduce tobacco use among teens in Redding, proponents of the ordinance who spoke at the meeting, including former council member Kristen Schreder, are concerned that the city still hasn’t implemented any enforcement to back up the new law.
Student commenters expressed similar concerns, voicing worries about the responsibility of addressing tobacco use among their classmates in the absence of strong enforcement by the city.
“Students should not have to be responsible for monitoring their peers’ behavior, and schools should not have to stand alone in the enforcement,” said Olivia Racki, a senior at Shasta High School. “What we need from you is the enforcement of your ordinance in order to create change.”
Program fees derived from the new ordinance, which are likely to total over $117,000 annually, were originally intended to hire a full-time neighborhood preservation officer to enforce the ordinance and a half-time administrative assistant to manage the Tobacco Retail License Program, including collecting fees from businesses, according to Jeremy Pagan, the director of Redding’s Development Services Department.
While the program has advertised and interviewed candidates for those positions, funding to pay for them is the missing piece, Pagan said, adding that the City of Redding has yet to hire for either position leaving revenue on the table and enforcement by the wayside.
“We have not issued [tobacco licenses] to date without adequate staffing, and of course, there’s been very little to no enforcement,” he said.
Pagan called on the council to draft a budget resolution to establish the officer and assistant positions, and authorize recruitment and employment. The council approved the plan, contingent on receiving grant funding from the Department of Justice Tobacco Grant Program. Council member Tenessa Audette, whose state assembly campaign received funding from tobacco retailers as reported by Shasta Scout last year, opposed the decision.
The city has not yet received the tobacco grant funding but should know within about 30 days if it will, Pagan said. Assuming the grant comes through, it will take about six to 12 months for enough licensing fees to come in to allow for enforcement to begin taking place.
“You’re looking at having to get 100-plus businesses signed up and their licenses applied for and issued,” Pagan explained. “It takes some time. Multiple letters, outreach, and so forth, so it will take some time.”
OCt. 22, 6:55 p.m.: We’ve updated the story to correct a name spelling.
Have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org
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Tenessa regularly received donations and votes in favor of the donors. She never discloses those conflicts and never recuses herself. Few examples:
She received donations from multiple gas stations and tobacco retailers. Then, she voted against enforcing the tobacco ordinance that was passed last year to protect the children.
Chevron Tops Mini Mart $1,000.00 — $1,000.00
Balwinder Gill $1,000.00 — $1,000.00
Baljovan Singh $1,000.00 — $1,000.00
Jaspal Singh $1,000.00 — $1,000.00
JKSD Gas $500.00 — $500.00
https://www.redding.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/10/26/redding-donors-fuel-2026-city-council-election/92358083007/
She also received money from Lyle Tullis while voting regularly to award road repair contracts to them.
Lyle Tullis $2,500.00 — $2,500.00
She also received money from Robert Cronic and then approved Redding City giving $1.2 Million to Robert Cronic
AUDETTE, TENESSA Tenessa Audette for Assembly 2024 1460549 State Assembly Cronic, Robert $2,500.00 Feb 3, 2024
https://www.redding.com/story/news/crime/2024/10/29/redding-in-talks-with-sober-living-motel-about-1-2-million-loan/75720096007/
Why aren’t the schools implementing “smoke free” campus policies? Seems pretty simple for the schools to suspend students for violations while on campus or school events.
1. Who says that schools are not implementing ‘smoke-free” campuses? Unless you can prove otherwise, I call that BS.
2. Kids can be stupid sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that you should automatically suspend them because they made a dumb mistake by smoking once or twice. There should be some type of punishment, yes, but suspension is a bit harsh. Aren’t these the exact kids you would want to teach better?
3. He who’s without sin, let them cast the first stone.
Jolly. I think you’re saying the schools are enforcing no smoking policies, which is as it should be. GOOD! Here’s an oddity to consider. While state law makes it illegal to provide vaping products to minors, it’s not illegal for minors to have vaping products or use vaping products in designated areas. If we don’t want minors using the product, why isn’t there a law that reflects that? As for the plea for enforcement, I find it deeply troubling that the COR is collecting an “enforcement fee” then isn’t providing the service (where is the money going?). Seems like the shops who pay the fee should be due a refund if the city isn’t providing the service the fee is paying for.
ReddingSkeptic: As we shared in the article, currently the city is neither collecting the fees nor enforcing.
I stand corrected, you covered it well in your article, and I spaced on the detail as I read it.
“Students called on the Redding City Council to follow through on enforcement of a tobacco ordinance passed last year. Doing so, they said, would help address Shasta County’s high rate of teen tobacco use.”
Heck yeah! But those miscreants don’t tell you about the addiction they have developed for vaping (including highly concentrated THC) during school hours – in many ways more dangerous than tobacco.
An entire young generation irreversibly heading down the sewer.
Same old person posting negativity every chance they can.
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Some of us rise against.
🙂😆
“Some of us rise against”
You have not answered the main concern of that old man: are you into vaping during school hours? Vaping THC?
It would be entertaining to hear a YES answer from you, then it would be fair to ask if you have pictured yourself where would you like to be by 2030, assuming of course you didn’t perish or became permanently disabled as result of a health condition related to vaping (thus turning you into a real burden to society the latter).
FYI: Vaping -specially THC- carries serious physical, mental, and respiratory health risks, largely due to high THC concentrations and UNREGULATED CHEMICAL ADDITIVES.
Sincerely, a middle-aged man.
Speaking for myself, I think it’s a bunch of BS for you to make the claim that they are irrevocably headed down the drain.
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And no, I don’t think that vaping or smoking THC during school hours is anything appropriate.
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I do think that sometimes kids do stupid things, but that doesn’t mean that they are irrevocably lost as you seem to be claiming.
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Do you know what a Pharisee is? If you don’t, then you should really read and discover what a Pharisee is before you start making such judgmental calls on people.
Nope, not into vaping. I’m also not in high school.
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But yes, I still think that you are single person posting negativity under a bunch of different names.
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Also, I hope I’m living up to my name. Why else do you think I go by it? 🤭
“miscreants”? I have a crabby neighbor who complained about a school bus route so that kids couldn’t wait to be picked up on the corner in front of their house; they didn’t like the kids touching any of their fake-looking small white rocks (no, they weren’t throwing them). Not the same thing as vaping but same “kids these days, bunch of miscreants!” attitude.
I support the ordinance but I do have issue with stores that are not in compliance. They have issued warnings, fines, removal of illegal products and they continue to be in business. Is a new license fee going to help with enforcement?
Thank you for covering this. It is shocking that our teens have such a rate of smoking/vaping, and the city should step up. Go, kids!
But Data Guy has to live up to his name.
The same CDPH chart you link that reports 41 percent of teens have ever used tobacco also says the comparable statewide rate is 21.6 percent. Going to an entirely different report — the one that says 6.4 percent — is a great way to compare apples and oranges.
The problem is very real. It is probably twice as bad as the state average, not seven times as bad.
Thank you also for indulging this nerdery.
Data guy, your data has been refuted a million times on a news Cafe and here too.
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Bottom line is you cherry pick.
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Please post more of your data, so that it can be refuted.