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[ LOS ANGELES ](https://mail.citywatchla.com/los-angeles)
# LA Supes Lack Backbone on Residents Right to Choose
September 30 2019
Written by 2urbangirls.
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**SOUTH OF THE 10**--The L.A. County Board of Supervisors (BOS) are sending mixed signals when it comes to states and residents’ rights to choose. Specifically, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas who runs from votes concerning residents’ rights to choose.
The Board of Supervisors, led by Mark Ridley-Thomas, set the framework to implement a permanent ban on the sale of flavored tobacco and menthol in unincorpated areas of L.A. County. A ban would hinder members of the minority community who choose to sell and/or use the above products.
The BOS are effectively taking away our right to choose.
The BOS continues to get behind hot button national topics centered around the right to choose. Specifically, abortion rights and immigration.
The five-member panel, based on their own personal opinions, have banned official travel to states who infringe on their constituents’ rights.
Travel bans include the [State of Alabama](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Los-Angeles-Abortion-Travel-Ban-Alabama-Official-510240621.html), who took away women’s rights to have an abortion and several states who support phasing out the [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals](https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2017/09/12/la-county-board-daca/) (DACA) program.
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas (MRT) was conveniently absent for the travel ban vote related to Alabama and abstained on the DACA vote because he is now publicly begging President Donald Trump to do something about the homeless crisis in the State of California.
It is both confusing and shameful that MRT lacks a backbone to champion immigrant and women’s rights but is at the forefront of a flavored tobacco ban, of certain products, that will severely impact people who open an honest business and have the right to purchase the products which are legal.
MRT’s concerns about residents’ rights to choose should be consistent across the board. He has spent decades protecting the right to vote but isn’t listening to the voting community who are against his proposed ban of flavored tobacco products.
MRT is ultimately taking the position that flavored tobacco products are the gateway to vaping, which they are not. Hookah, which also uses flavors, is not on the radar either. Ironically, MRT has NOT introduced any motion to ban the sale of vaping products or hookah in unincorporated areas of L.A. County.
MRT”s new “bestie” CA Governor Gavin Newsom isn’t seeking a statewide ban of flavored tobacco/e-cigarettes but opted to fund a public awareness campaign and increased enforcement of the sales. Newsom’s strategy appears to be using local cities to do his dirty work.
With Newsom appointing MRT as the head of a statewide homeless commission, MRT has no choice but to do his masters bidding.
The ordinance will come back before the Supervisors, this week, and if passed, would give retailers 180 days to clear their shelves of flavored tobacco products. This will ultimately lead to hundreds of failed businesses and further blight, and these shuttered businesses will have no choice but to vigorously fight MRT’s return to the L.A City Council next year.
2UrbanGirls will join them to #JustSayNo to Mark Ridley-Thomas continuing his destruction of minority communities because unlike teens, adults hold their power in their votes.
(2UrbanGirls is a CityWatch contributor and has been cited in Compton Herald, Daily News, Inglewood Today, Intersections South LA, KCRW, KPCC, Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, LA Watts Times, Mercury News and The Atlantic.)
-cw
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