US Senate candidate received $50k from vape shop owners

US Senate candidate received $50k from vape shop owners
(House of Vapes in Riverton is pictured on Saturday, March 30, 2024. Eric S. Peterson/Utah Investigative Journalism Project)

The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Utah News Dispatch.

Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs, one of a handful of candidates vying for the U.S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by Mitt Romney, welcomed Florida GOP Congressman Matt Gaetz to stump for him at a recent rally of several hundred enthusiastic attendees.

Gaetz warmed up the crowd with jokes about attendees showing up in mild Utah spring weather of sleet and rain that would have shut down everything in Florida. The men also took shots at Romney, who decided not to seek reelection, and called for the need for conservative fighters in Congress.

Staggs told the crowd the senate didn’t just need “guys with Rs next to their names, but true America-first, constitutional conservatives.”

Gaetz echoed the theme.

“The decisions in our nation’s capital are often made by foreign interests abroad and special interests at home,” Gaetz said. “I need folks who will actually go there and represent their constituents.”

Before the rally The Utah Investigative Journalism Project reached out numerous times to ask Staggs his views about one special interest group in particular — smoke shops that sell vape and e-cigarette products — but Staggs did not respond.

Staggs has received more than $50,000 in donations from individuals connected to Utah smoke shops, several of them located in Riverton. The vape shop contributions represent one tenth of Staggs’ outside donations. One campaign finance reform expert called it a significant amount of money tied to a special interest.

These shops are on the front line of a policy battle being waged in Washington and on the local level: how to effectively regulate the influx of foreign vape products and stop them from specifically targeting children. Many of these products have come from Chinese manufacturers, flooding smoke shops in the United States and overwhelming regulators trying to keep up with enforcement.

A reporter caught up with Staggs before his rally with Gaetz had started. He said the smoke shop owners had not talked to him about possible federal regulation. He was also frank about needing their support.

“I’m just out here trying to get as much donations as I can because I’ve got over five thousand donors. I have to be grassroots,” Staggs said. He compared himself to other candidates with more funding and better connections. “These other guys have millions of dollars from lobbyists and everything else — I don’t. So anybody that I can bend their ear, that might be interested in donating, I do.”

When asked if he had a position on federal regulations over vape products, Staggs was quickly whisked away by campaign staff.

$54,600 in donations

Federal campaign records show Staggs received $54,600 in 2023 from six individuals connected to local smoke shops.

Samer Salih, donated $9,900 and business records list him as a member of Alternatives Smoke in West Jordan. However, he listed his business as a separate real-estate company on his campaign donation.

Mostafa Alazzawi also donated $9,900 and is a member of Vaporland in Clearfield. Another member of that company, Mustafa Aladhami, also donated $9,900.

Noora Almallak is listed as having donated $10,000 to Staggs’ campaign. Almallak identified herself as a teller at a local credit union on the campaign record, but the address she listed is the same as Aladhami of Vaporland.

Sabah Allesawi donated $5,000 and court records identified Allesawi as having previously sold a smoke shop to another donor to Staggs’ campaign, Hosam Al-Baderi, who donated $9,900 to Staggs in 2023 as well.

Al-Baderi’s wife is listed as a member of the company running House of Vapes in Riverton.

On Staggs’ donation filings, Al-Baderi lists himself as an owner of ALIS Worldwide Imports. The company is not listed as a Utah business. A search of the site Open Corporates that tracks business filings nationally and internationally also found no listing for that company.

A reporter attempted to contact Al-Baderi at a Draper address that was listed on the federal campaign filing for his donation to Staggs in 2023, but a resident at the house indicated Al-Baderi had not lived there for years.

Why are vape shop owners donating?

Shanna Ports is the senior legal counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit campaign finance reform group based in Washington, D.C. She said the donations do represent a significant amount from a special interest group.

According to Stagg’s filings the smoke-shop contributions amounted to almost one-tenth of his 2023 donations, not counting money Staggs donated to his own campaign.

“We obviously have these contribution limits so no individual can have outsize influence over a candidate, but that doesn’t stop a bunch of individuals with similar interests from flooding that candidate with donations,” Ports said. “That faction could potentially influence a candidate.”

Ports says it’s not surprising that inaccurate information would show up in donor filings as the Federal Elections Commission only really monitors filings for inappropriate donation amounts and is not able to investigate all the information donors provide, nor are candidates expected to, either.

“They are not expected to Google addresses or do follow ups of that nature,” she said.

Big Tobacco vs. Big Vape

SB61 was passed in the 2024 Utah Legislature specifically restricting flavored vape and e-cigarette products meant to target youth. The legislation banned products that have drawn criticism for being marketed to minors with fruit, chocolate and other flavors.

The legislation drew intense pushback from lobbyists representing businesses that sell vape products. Many argued that vaping helps people quit traditional tobacco products.

Beau Maxon of the Utah Vapor Business Association criticized the bill as a product of the Big Tobacco industry, designed to give them a monopoly.

“You are rewarding the big, bad wolves,” Maxon told the committee. “We exist to get consumers off traditional cigarettes.”

The bill was sponsored by Sen. Jen Plumb, D-Salt Lake City, who also works as a physician.

Plumb described passing the legislation as incredibly challenging, having faced opposition from multiple lobbyists, and said she personally received death threats over the bill.

“It was very nasty and there were a lot of threats and insults hurled,” Plumb said in a recent interview.

The legislation set up a state registry so smoke shops would be required to prove they were only selling products that had been authorized or were in a “pre-authorization” stage with the Food and Drug Administration. The legislation also banned all non-tobacco flavors of vape and e-cigarettes with the exception of menthol.

Plumb said the legislation was just about setting up “guard rails,” giving local authorities enforcement powers and banning the flavored products that most commonly addict youth.

“If you get someone hooked on a niche product, it is very, very difficult for them to ever stop,” Plumb said. “You add an immature and underdeveloped brain to that mix and they’ve got a customer for life.”

Tom Pryor is a lawyer with The Public Health Law Center at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in Minnesota. The center provides research and support to public health advocates and Pryor has watched the trend of how states are trying to regulate these products given lackluster enforcement from the FDA.

“There is a frustration among public health advocates that the FDA hasn’t done more to enforce against bad actors,” Pryor said. But he acknowledges it is a daunting challenge, given the fact that the FDA has fielded literally millions of applications for authorization of e-cigarette and vape products.

And that doesn’t include products in smoke shops that don’t have any applications submitted for authorization.

“There’s a lot of products on the shelf that shouldn’t be there, and the FDA just doesn’t have the capacity to rigorously enforce those laws across the nation,” he said.

A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers recently raised alarms to the FDA about this problem, citing data from the FDA that 1 in 4 youth reported using e-cigarettes daily. The lawmakers also raised concerns about the influx of products coming from China.

“Illegal vaping products from the PRC (People’s Republic of China) now make up more than half of all vaping products sold in the United States and contribute significantly to underage vaping rates,” they wrote.

In Utah, about 20% of 12th graders, 15% of 10th graders and 10% of 8th graders say they have vaped, according to the 2023 School Health and Risk Prevention (SHARP) survey.

Pryor said the state registries can make an impact on the problem. Addressing it federally, however, could be a challenge. The FDA could make new rules but those would likely result in lawsuits. Congress could also follow the lead of states like Utah and completely ban flavored products, but that would face tough legislative challenges.

“That would be a hard pass,” Pryor said. “You would need to get past the filibuster in the Senate and it would be pretty tough.”

Correction: A previous version of this report included details of Hosam Al-Baderi’s conviction in Nevada for possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. It also referenced a lawsuit in Utah alleging his involvement in the sale of a drug known as bath salts through a vape shop. Al-Baderi did not own the vape shop at the time of the alleged drug distribution and the lawsuit was later dismissed. The previous version of the story also listed an incorrect year of a death in that lawsuit, and misidentified Al-Baderi’s marital status.

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