The Boston Public Health Commission voted Monday to stop convenience stores from selling mint and menthol cigarettes and vaping products. Under the new regulation, all mint and menthol tobacco and nicotine products will only be allowed to be sold in Boston in adult-only tobacco retailers.

The goal of the rule is to stop teenagers from vaping and smoking.

“What we are seeing now with the explosive expansion of vaping products risks reversing decades of gains in reducing youth tobacco use,” said Boston Board of Health Chair Manny Lopes in a statement. “I believe today’s actions take important steps to prevent Boston’s youth from entering into a lifetime of nicotine and tobacco dependency.”

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh had asked Boston’s Public Health Commission to develop rules to address teen vaping as well as addiction to menthol cigarettes, which is particularly prevalent in the black community. "Teen vaping is an epidemic that is particularly alarming because we know that nicotine use at a young age can have the power to lead to a lifelong dependency,” Walsh said in a statement.

Jonathan Shaer, president of the New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association, which strongly opposed the ban, said in a statement that the commission “dropped the ball on protecting minors and minority communities this evening with the vote to ban menthol tobacco products from convenience stores.” The association says convenience stores, by checking IDs, actually stop teenagers from buying cigarettes, and the ban will move more sales to the black market.

The legal age for buying tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, is 21.

Massachusetts could soon ban the sale of mint and menthol tobacco products altogether. A bill that would ban the sale of all flavored tobacco products was passed by the Legislature and is sitting on Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk. Baker has to decide this week whether to sign or veto the bill.

If it is signed into law, the statewide ban on flavored vaping products would go into effect immediately, but the ban selling other flavored tobacco products — including menthol and mint cigarettes, cigars and chew — would not go into effect until June 1, 2020.