While residents notice more young smokers, data shows cigarette use at historic lows among teens. The city is cracking down on illegal flavored tobacco sales that drive youth addiction to vapes, including a $250,000 judgment against a Mission District smoke shop.

At 5196 Mission Street, the Bass Gift Shop sits behind metal gates, closed since August. The $250,000 judgment against its owners—Basserty Alriashi and Muneer Al Osfur—tells a different story about what San Francisco's youth tobacco problem actually looks like.

While some residents on neighborhood forums have noticed more young people smoking, the data shows cigarettes aren't the driver. The 2024 California Youth Tobacco Survey found only 1.3% of high school students statewide currently use cigarettes—a historic low. But 5.0% report vaping, with 89.5% of those vapes being flavored products designed to attract new users.

The disconnect plays out on city streets. In March 2025, City Attorney David Chiu secured the quarter-million judgment against Bass Gift Shop owners for repeatedly violating the city's flavored tobacco ban and operating without a required tobacco permit. "These smoke shop owners blatantly disregarded laws established to protect young people from the harms of tobacco use," Chiu said in a statement. "Not only were they selling banned flavored tobacco products, but they didn't even have a San Francisco tobacco permit."

The Department of Public Health began issuing violations in September 2023 and issued a formal Hearing Order in March 2024 demanding the shop cease tobacco sales and allow inspections, which the owners defied. In May 2024, a DPH decoy purchased an illegal flavored e-cigarette from the shop, and in June 2024, the owners refused a DPH inspector entry.

The city's Environmental Health Branch handles smoking complaints through 311, but 2024 and 2025 complaint data isn't publicly accessible for analysis. What is clear: 38.1% of San Francisco high school students report exposure to secondhand vape on sidewalks—the highest location for outdoor exposure, according to state health data.

The enforcement action comes as the San Francisco Department of Public Health continues implementing its flavored tobacco ban, first passed in 2018. The department received $3.97 million in state funding for tobacco prevention programs for the 2023-24 fiscal year, retroactively authorized by the Board of Supervisors in February 2024, though Mayor London Breed's proposed budget doesn't specify new funding for tobacco control.

The pattern on Mission Street reflects a broader shift. While traditional cigarette use among teens continues declining, flavored vapes and oral nicotine pouches (used by 1.4% of California high schoolers) have become the primary tobacco concerns. The city's response focuses on cutting off the supply chain—permits, flavored product bans, and enforcement actions like the Bass Gift Shop judgment.

For anyone walking past the now-shuttered smoke shop, the metal gates tell the story: San Francisco isn't fighting a cigarette resurgence, but a new generation of flavored tobacco products designed to get young people hooked.