2 Fredericton vape shops enter pleas on charges of selling flavoured products

Two Fredericton vape shops have entered pleas on charges that they broke a recently enacted law banning the sale of flavoured vape products.

Mary Jane McKearney, representing her business, Mary Jane Vapes, appeared in Fredericton provincial court on Wednesday morning, where she pleaded guilty to one count of selling a flavoured vape product, and another of selling a  vape product to a person under 19 years old.

Reading out the facts of the case, Crown prosecutor Rodney Jordan said that on March 10, two underage persons entered the store and asked the clerk for a pomegranate flavoured vape.

The clerk offered a list of flavours available and then sold them a peach-flavoured vape for about $20.

The judge sentenced McKearney to pay a fine of $292.50 for each of the two offences.

The second company, Vape City Enterprise Ltd., pleaded not guilty to a charge that it sold flavoured vape product on Feb. 22.

The company was represented in court Wednesday by defence lawyer Abigail Herrington.

The trial expected to take half a day on May 15, 2023.

The charges come less than a year after the provincial government amended the Tobacco and Electronic Cigarette Sales Act to ban the sale of any vaping product that is flavoured to mimic the taste of anything other than tobacco.

The new law came into effect Sept. 1, but has since been met with opposition from vape product retailers and vape users, some of whom are currently challenging it in court.

In March, a Court of Queen's Bench judge denied an injunction that would have suspended the ban until the case had been decided on.

The plaintiffs have since applied for leave to appeal that decision, and an appeal court judge is currently deciding whether or not to grant it.