St. Petersburg Proposes Five-Year Retail Ban on Vapes and E-Liquids Starting March 2027

St. Petersburg's city parliament received a bill to ban the retail sale of e-cigarettes and e-liquids for a five-year period starting in March 2027, the legislative assembly's chair said Monday.

Speaking to the media on Oct. 19, Alexander Belsky, chair of the city's Legislative Assembly, said the body had received a draft that would fully prohibit the retail sale of electronic nicotine delivery systems and the e-liquids used in them from March 1, 2027, through March 1, 2032, according to Vedomosti, Newizv and Vapesee's reports of the announcement.

Two companion bills were submitted alongside the retail ban. One would expand the city's existing no-sales zones to additional locations, including sports venues, children's health facilities, beaches, water-front recreation areas and places of worship, and would give local authorities broader discretion to designate restricted zones. The other would empower Smolny — the city government headquarters — to draw no-sales boundaries for tobacco, hookah and vaping equipment around primary and secondary schools and universities.

The stated goal of the three bills is to tighten access to tobacco and nicotine products, with a focus on protecting young people, according to the legislative assembly's account.

Regional authorities gained the power to impose such restrictions following a federal-level revision of Russia's tobacco control law, which devolved authority over vaping-product sales to the regions, according to Vapesee. St. Petersburg's assembly has pushed for the exit of vaping products from market circulation as part of that framework.

If adopted, St. Petersburg would join a growing list of Russian regions considering or implementing regional restrictions on e-cigarettes, with the city's ban, in the five-year formulation, the longest proposed suspension of retail sales in the country.