Minnetonka, MN Tobacco & Vaping: Flavored Tobacco Bans (2026)

The flavor restriction is subdivision 5 of section 625.040 of the Minnetonka City Code, titled Prohibited Acts. It says a person must not sell, offer for sale, give away, or otherwise deal in flavored tobacco-related products or samples of such products. Because section 625.005 defines tobacco-related products to include tobacco, tobacco-related devices, electronic delivery devices and nicotine and lobelia delivery products, the ban reaches flavored vapes and e-cigarette products as well as flavored cigars and chew. The definitions in section 625.005 do not set out a separate definition of the word flavored.

The exception is narrow and tied to subdivision 3 of the same section. The ban does not apply to a facility that satisfies the self-service merchandising requirements: an entrance door opening directly to the outside, at least 90 percent of gross revenue from the sale of tobacco-related products, and a retailer who ensures that no person younger than 21 years of age is present, or permitted to enter, at any time. A convenience store or gas station that sells any meaningful share of other goods cannot meet that revenue test.

The flavor ban sits inside a licensing scheme. Selling any tobacco-related product at retail needs a license under section 625.010, issued by the community development director, and the same section 625.040 sets other prohibited acts: no sales to anyone below age 21, no vending machine sales, no sales outside the licensed location or area, and no sale of electronic delivery device liquid, nicotine or not, that is not in child-resistant packaging as defined in 16 CFR 1700.15(b)(1) as in effect on January 1, 2015.

Enforcement runs through the administrative program in sections 1310.015 through 1310.050, with license consequences set by the City Council under section 625.055.