Fernandez said about 8 percent to 10 percent of his customers were ages 18-21. He’s not worried about the drop in customers when the law goes into effect Dec. 1, he said. “My main concern is the principle of this. A vapor product is not tobacco. You are taking away the option for younger adults to have safer alternatives than combustive tobacco.”

Lack of information

The two products are seen the same by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however. The agency recently extended long-standing restrictions on cigarettes to vaping products, also known as e-cigarettes. Minors were banned from buying the products starting in August.

The move was in response to the growing number of teens vaping. Between 2011 and 2015, e-cigarette use rose from 1.5 percent to 16 percent among high school students, and from 0.6 percent to 5.3 percent among middle school students, federal figures show. That means more than 3 million middle and high school students vaped in 2015.

Whether e-cigarettes are safer than conventional cigarettes or help people quit smoking remains unclear because of the lack of information on the new devices, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.