A San Rafael lawyer has filed a referendum measure to strike down the Board of Supervisors’ ban on flavored tobacco, which passed unanimously in June.

Attorney Joel Aurora, of the political law firm Nielsen Merksamer, submitted the referendum Friday, at which point he had 30 days to gather 19,040 signatures from San Francisco voters — 10 percent of the vote count from the last mayoral election.

“We think the Board of Supervisors is limiting freedom of choice for San Francisco voters,” said Jaime Rojas, a spokesman for the group Let’s Be Real San Francisco, which is running the referendum campaign.

The group represents tobacco manufacturers R.J. Reynolds and Altria, as well as several vaping advocacy groups and the Arab American Grocers Association, whose members opposed the supervisors’ ordinance, saying it hurt immigrant business owners.

Supervisor Malia Cohen, who sponsored the flavored tobacco ban, called the referendum a “ridiculous attempt to put profit over people’s health.”

“This petition shows that they are desperate,” Cohen said. “My legislation threatens the sale of their products, including Newport cigarettes, the No. 2 brand for all cigarette sales in the U.S. and the No. 1 brand in menthol sales.”

She added: “They know that children will stop picking up a lethal habit if we remove flavored tobacco from the market.”

If Nielsen Merksamer gathers enough signatures to ratify the referendum measure, the ordinance would be suspended and the supervisors will get a chance to reconsider their vote. They could decide either to repeal the ban or to send it to voters in the June 2018 election.

That election ballot will also include the District 8 supervisor race.

— Rachel Swan

Email: cityinsider@sfchronicle.com, rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfcityinsider @rachelswan