January 23rd 2020,
Good Evening,
It is Maryland’s turn and we are at “war” with the legislature. This is the time we need to pull all the stops, put in the effort and get people to show up in droves. Shop owners, employee’s, customers, vapers, manufacturers, distributors, wives, fathers, brothers etc etc. We need to pack the halls of the statehouse.
Our first Bill is the flavor ban hearing on February 6th in Annapolis MD at the house of delegates. The hearing starts at 1pm and if you want to sign up to testify or submit written testimony you need to do so starting at 9am. There will be a line so I would get there early. You need to have your written testimony on a flash drive and upload it into the kiosk outside in the lobby of the economic matters committee. They will shut down the kiosks about 90 min prior to the hearing. The MVA will have 2-3 panels of speakers and our lobbyist will arrange those ahead of time and plan accordingly. We need to pack the house this day. Bring everyone you can get down there that day, I don’t care who they are. It would be outstanding if we had 200-300 people or more.
Our Second bill is January 29th. This is the taxation bill. I’m still collecting information on this bill and testimony. Still it would be nice to have some numbers in Annapolis this day as well. When I find out exactly what we are doing I will notify via FB MVA chat.
Our Third bill is February 13th and this is the senate side of the flavor ban in the Senate Finance committee. Times I do not know yet but we want to follow the same rules as on the 6th. In other words this is another day we need to pack the house. I will give details as soon as I know them.
We are also doing a post card campaign. All these postcards need to get to Candice Gott by Feb 2nd one way or another. Please message her if you need an address for mailing them. Our lobbyist will be copying and hand delivering these cards to legislators and using them as an eye piece during testimony. There is a list of participating vape shops who have the cards. I am also going to provide a few attachments where you can download and print if you were not at the latest MVA
meeting and you want to participate. Have people write their name and address on the card and 1-3 sentences of how flavored vapor help them get off of cigarettes, health improvements etc. Again, Candice Gott needs to have these cards by FEBRUARY 2nd! Very important! If you were not at the MVA meeting and did not get on our list of participating shops please contact Kyle Vega and he can update the list with your shop name.
This session we are not spamming the committees with emails and phone calls because they know its fake. They want to hear from real constituents. That is why we are doing the postcards. Although have everyone you can look up who represents them in Annapolis and call them to tell them you are opposed to the flavor band and the ridiculous tax and ask what your representative is doing about it, even if their not on the committees the bills are going through. These politicians talk all the time and we want to create a lot of buzz about these bills to show that Maryland consumers and small businesses do not want this and we are opposed. Also, when calling it is important to let them know you are a Maryland small business, you are not a chain convenience store, you are not JUUL and you are not Big tobacco.
We have a good fighting chance but we need massive participation. Now is our time to fight!
Thank you and please reach out if you have any questions,
Matthew Milby
MVA
Copyright © 2024 Maryland Vapor Alliance