E-Cigarette Retail Licensing: Theory, Evidence and Regulatory Policy

• The licensing system in Santa Clara County was put in place to decrease youth access to tobacco and led to a reduction in the number of retailers and reduced youth access. [...] A barrier that would need to be considered in the design of a licensing scheme is tobacco industry payment, promotions and incentives to tobacco retailers that may offset the disincentive of the license fee (OTRU, 2012). [...] • The licensing system in Santa Clara County was put in place to decrease youth access to tobacco and led to a reduction in the number of retailers and reduced youth access. [...] The Ontario Tobacco Research Unit 21 E-Cigarette Retail Licensing: Theory, Evidence and Regulatory Policy licensing systems in Finland and Hungary were both successful in substantially reducing the number of tobacco retail outlets, whereas there is no evidence that the licensing systems in France, Italy and Spain had a public health impact (Kuipers et al., 2021). [...] (2021), the cases of Norway and Scotland demonstrate that retail licensing systems may fail in the absence of strong political support and in the face of strong retailer opposition backed by the tobacco industry (Kuipers et al., 2021).