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The D.C. Council on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to a bill that would ban the sale of flavored tobacco, including menthol cigarettes, and prohibits electronic smoking devices from being sold within a quarter-mile of any middle or high school. The ban — which requires a second vote and Mayor Muriel Bowser’s signature before taking effect — would put D.C. alongside a growing number of states and localities taking action against flavored tobacco products and electronic cigarettes, and comes as the Food and Drug Administration has announced its intention to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.

The D.C. Council passed a bill Tuesday evening banning the sale of flavored tobacco products, such as flavored e-cigarettes, menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. The bill, called the Flavored Tobacco Product Prohibition Amendment Act of 2021, would update a long-standing ban on the sale of tobacco products to minors under 16 to include e-smoking devices within a quarter-mile of middle and high schools, and eliminate the sale of flavored tobacco products.

The council’s newer Office of Racial Equality reviewed the bill and found that while the bill "has the potential to advance racial equity by improving health outcomes, enforcement of the bill has the potential to exacerbate racial inequity in economic and social justice outcomes." The review looks at the impact on businesses within communities of color, where tobacco use is more prevalent. It also looks at the fines that could disproportionately impact those communities and enforcement, which the study noted could lead to more interactions with police if officers are charged with enforcing the ban.

A growing number of D.C. residents say they’re in a post-pandemic quandary: parking enforcement has resumed, but they can’t get an appointment at the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew their licenses and tags ahead of a July 1 deadline to do so. DMV officials say they’re ramping service back up, but apparently not fast enough to meet the demand of folks who are rushing to get services that were largely suspended during the pandemic. And the situation has drawn the attention of multiple D.C. lawmakers, some of whom tweet as soon as appointments become available while others push the DMV to fully open to the public.

In D.C., the pace of shots administered to residents Ward 7 and 8 lag far behind other parts of the city. Overall, about 42% of all D.C. residents are fully vaccinated, compared to just 18% of residents in Ward 8 and 24% in Ward 7, according to D.C. data, which lags slightly behind CDC data. “When you look at the existing map of who’s vaccinated, we have a tale of two cities,” said At-Large Council member Christina Henderson, who questioned the wisdom of the plan to phase out most of the District’s large-scale vaccine clinics by the end of the month, which was announced last week.

Pro tip: Pay the parking meter. Why? All parking enforcement returns to D.C. on Tuesday, June 1. For over a year, residents and visitors have mostly dodged tickets. But come Tuesday, D.C.’s 240 parking officers will again enforce expired parking meters, along with expired residential parking permits and vehicle tags; no parking zones; registration of residential out-of-state automobiles; and abandoned vehicles. Street sweeping also returns, meaning cars parked in street sweeping zones during posted sweeping hours will be ticketed.

As the District restarts full parking enforcement this week, residents have been scrambling to find available DMV appointments. After a 14-month hiatus due to the pandemic, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that ticketing wound resume again, including for expired parking meters, expired residential parking permits and expired vehicle tags. Vehicles must also display valid registration stickers.

The health care system’s “long history of wrongdoing and bias disproportionately experienced by communities of color” contributes to vaccine access and confidence issues, Henderson said. For the District, people who live in the eastern part of the city are often told they need to travel west to get care, and that means transportation challenges, extra time needed away from work, and other burdens, which “has led to greater health disparities and inequitable access for our most vulnerable communities.”

Cannabis activists and industry representatives in Washington D.C. are disappointed by the Biden Administration’s continued ban on adult-use cannabis sales in the District.

D.C. congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton supports the measure. During an event she sponsored in late March, Rock Creek Park Superintendent Julia Washburn was asked about the issue. While she indicated a permanent closure was unlikely, “we will certainly be willing to listen to the mayor and the city to determine a way forward. But at the moment, the plan is to reopen when the city returns to normal operations,” Washburn said.

“We know that students of color and with disabilities are disproportionately affected by all forms of school discipline,” Council member Christina Henderson said in a statement. “In its current form, data shared around school-based arrests or disciplinary action cannot be disaggregated by demographics. This legislation would change that.”

“What is not happening is anyone taking a critical look at youth-involved arrest, particularly on school campuses, and not just looking at it from a numbers standpoint, but also looking at it from a circumstances standpoint,” at-large councilmember Christina Henderson told WTOP.