Selling Laughing Gas at an L.A. Smoke Shop Could Mean Jail Time

The council's 14-0 vote would bar tobacco and cannabis shops from selling nitrous oxide if Mayor Karen Bass signs off.

Pacoima high school students took the microphone at Los Angeles City Hall on Wednesday with one ask: get laughing gas out of the city's smoke shops.

The City Council said yes, 14-0. Its ordinance would make nitrous oxide, the gas sold in small canisters called whippets, off-limits at tobacco and cannabis shops. LAist reported that sellers who break it could face a fine of as much as $1,000 or as long as six months in county jail. It isn't law yet. It goes next to Mayor Karen Bass.

It took a while to get here. Councilmembers Imelda Padilla and Eunisses Hernandez introduced the motion on Oct. 8, 2024, with Councilmember Tim McOsker seconding it, the San Fernando Valley Sun reported. Wednesday's vote came one day short of its second birthday.

Padilla made her case to the council's Public Safety Committee in a Feb. 26 letter, the Sun reported, pitching a narrow rule aimed at shops with no business reason to stock the stuff. On May 12, the council voted 14-0 to have the city attorney write the ordinance, with carve-outs for medical, automotive, industrial and food service uses.

Whipped cream survives. The version passed Wednesday exempts pre-packaged food that relies on the gas only as a propellant, NBC Los Angeles reported.

The students came from Bert Corona Charter High School, where Scott Branscomb of the San Fernando Valley Partnership, a nonprofit, runs a youth-led prevention program and meets with students at least twice a week. In May, the Sun reported, he described a 17-year-old student who was struggling to quit. She said it was hard because the cans came in flavors and smoke shops made them easy to buy.

Albert Melena, also with the partnership, told the council Wednesday that the discarded tanks on the city's streets are "a warning sign of how available this product is," NBC Los Angeles reported.

Dentists and doctors use nitrous oxide to sedate patients, but the FDA warns that inhaling or misusing it can cause serious health problems or death, LAist noted.

California already makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly sell or possess the gas to get high, and has for more than a decade, while leaving room for medical care, cooking and car performance. Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two more bills: one keeps it out of retail stores, and the other targets flavored nitrous and containers bigger than 8 grams, LAist reported.

Padilla told the council those state laws give cities clear authority to go further, and said the city's version adds tools to keep the canisters out of stores.

L.A. is late to this, not early. Rialto passed a similar ban in 2017, according to the Sun, and Huntington Beach, Santa Ana and unincorporated Orange County have bans of their own. L.A. needed two years and two 14-0 votes to join them.

And it may not stop at smoke shops. The council also asked the City Attorney's Office to draft a second ordinance that would reach any retailer selling nitrous oxide with no legitimate use for it. Padilla, meanwhile, asked residents to report cannabis or tobacco shops still selling it by emailing the City Attorney's office at TEP@lacity.org.

Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson spoke to the students directly. "Remember you can create a world where the next generation of students won't have to show up to City Council to ask for poison to be taken away," he said, according to NBC Los Angeles.

Source: LAist, retrieved October 8, 2026. Other sources: sanfernandosun.com, nbclosangeles.com.