OOPS: Flavored vapor still for sale in Boulder through ban loophole.

After consulting with City Attorney Tom Carr, Red Star leaders determined the shop could continue to offer its do-it-yourself vapor mixes under Boulder’s prohibition of flavored vapor sales, which kicked in Thursday after city council agreed to new rules in response to parent concerns of skyrocketing youth use.

While Boulder sought to exile vapor products tasting like anything other than tobacco itself, its new law evidently failed to catch many Red Star products with the regulation. They remain legal to sell in Boulder because its tasteless nicotine-based product is sold separately from the flavoring agent, allowing customers to simply mix the contents of the two distinct containers together and then vape and still stimulate taste buds. The city’s ban apparently only applies to pre-mixed flavored products.

Someday, some government, somewhere will pass the exact right law to make prohibition work with no loopholes or unintended consequences worse than the thing they tried to prohibit.

This is not that day.