Framingham, MA Tobacco & Vaping: Flavored Tobacco Bans (2026)

Section 507-18A of the Framingham Board of Health's tobacco regulation prohibits selling, distributing or causing to be sold or distributed any flavored tobacco product anywhere in the city, with one exception: adult-only retail tobacco stores, defined and licensed elsewhere in Chapter 507, may still sell them. That exception traces back to § 507-13C, which limits adult-only stores' special sales privileges to tobacco products, flavored tobacco products and smoke accessories, while an ordinary tobacco product sales permit holder under § 507-13A may sell only unflavored tobacco.

Section 507-18B goes further for one product category: no person or entity may sell or distribute blunt wraps anywhere in Framingham, with no adult-only carve-out at all. The regulation's findings, adopted under Article II in 2019 and amended in December 2019, cite Massachusetts youth survey data that 59% of Massachusetts high school smokers reported trying flavored cigarettes or cigars and that flavored products function as starter products for long-term nicotine addiction. Section 507-18E separately bans all self-service displays of tobacco products and requires humidors to be locked, and § 507-18F bans vending machines containing tobacco products outright.

Per § 507-26, the flavor ban in § 507-18A took effect later than the rest of Article II: while most of the regulation began January 1, 2020, § 507-18A itself did not take effect until June 1, 2020.