In summary, against claims of express preemption, implicit preemption, equal protection, and an arbitrary age cut-off date, applying the same jurisprudence under which it has upheld local environmental protection legislation, the SJC ruled the anti-smoking bylaw is rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose.

This was a dispute between retailers and Brookline over a bylaw that prohibits sales of tobacco to anyone born after January 1, 2000.

The Supreme Judicial Court unanimously ruled in favor of Brookline, finding that the law did not conflict with state law.

The case is Six Brothers, Inc. v. Town of Brookline (March 8, 2024).

While the case involved tobacco, public health, science and politics, it turns on municipal Home Rule principles, constitutional provisions, and city and town powers to go beyond the Commonwealth on matters of important public policy and legitimate governmental purposes.

Massachusetts is one of the few Home Rule jurisdictions by virtue of its Constitution.

The SJC cites as applicable precedent some seminal environmental law cases upholding municipal bylaws against similar attacks as being beyond the municipal authority of Home Rule.

For these reasons, the decision has lessons for local environmental law, land use, and state-local relations.

Brookline in 2020 had barred anyone born after January 1, 2000 – age 21 at the time – from purchasing tobacco and nicotine products from retailers in the municipality.

The retailers challenged Brookline’s bylaw saying it conflicted with a state law setting the legal age to buy tobacco products at 21.

The retailers pointed out that Brookline's bylaw, as the town's population ages over time, would effectively ban the sale of tobacco products.

The SJC held that the generational ban didn't conflict with the state law, but instead augmented it.

This is similar to what the SJC ruled in upholding local Home Rule wetlands bylaws in the early Lovequist v. Town of Dennis Conservation Commission case (1979), ruling the Wetlands Protection Act was a minimum, not a maximum, of statewide protections and so did not preempt a new type of bylaw on the same subject.

Brookline’s generational ban, the SJC said, reflected “the legislative intent to protect young persons and other vulnerable populations from the deleterious health effects of tobacco product use.”

Note the legal nuance that rather than setting a minimum age to buy tobacco and nicotine products, which would on its face conflict with state law, generational bans bar anyone born after a certain date from purchasing the products.

As the name implies, that means tobacco and nicotine products will be off-limits forever to a younger generation within the geographical area covered by the ban.

Such is the purpose of this approach. The SJC commented, “In effect and by design, the bylaw is an incremental prohibition on the sale of tobacco products in the town.”

Here is the holding: the bylaw is rationally related to a legitimate government interest and does not violate the equal protection provisions of Article 1 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.

The SJC observes, “Local communities have a lengthy history of regulating tobacco products to curb the well-known, adverse health effects of tobacco use. For decades, such local laws have coexisted with State laws, often augmenting available Statewide protections.”

The Attorney General had concluded, reviewing the town bylaw for validity, that it was not preempted by the Tobacco Act.

The state Tobacco Act expressly preempts any "inconsistent, contrary or conflicting" local law related to the Statewide minimum age provision, but otherwise affirms the authority of local communities to limit and to ban the sale of tobacco products within their municipalities. St.2018, c.157, §22.

The SJC posits, “Our primary goal in interpreting a statute is to effectuate the intent of the Legislature ... 'begin[ning] with ... the plain language of the statute.'"

See Commonwealth v. Rainey, 491 Mass. 632, 641 (2023).

“A statute must be interpreted according to the intent of the Legislature ascertained from all its words construed by the ordinary and approved usage of the language, considered in connection with the cause of its enactment, the mischief or imperfection to be remedied and the main object to be accomplished, to the end that the purpose of its framers may be effectuated." Rainey, supra, quoting Conservation Comm'n of Norton v. Pesa, 488 Mass. 325, 331 (2021).

Furthermore, the Court does not construe a statutory provision in isolation; instead, we "look to the statutory scheme as a whole ... so as to produce an internal consistency within the statute."

“Any city or town may, by the adoption, amendment, or repeal of local ordinances or by-laws, exercise any power or function which the general court has power to confer upon it, which is not inconsistent with the constitution or laws enacted by the general court"[emphasis added]);G.L. c.43B, §13.Importantly, State laws and local ordinances and bylaws can and often do exist side by side. See Bloom v. Worcester, 363 Mass.136,156(1973)("[t]he existence of legislation on a subject, however, is not necessarily a bar to the enactment of local ordinances and by-laws exercising powers or functions with respect to the same subject"). This is particularly true of local ordinances and bylaws regulating public health, the importance of which we have long acknowledged.”

Importantly, the SJC recognizes the legal role of city and town legislation: “With deference to the role local communities historically have played as laboratories for potential Statewide standards, municipal laws are afforded "considerable latitude"; we require "a sharp conflict" between the local and State laws before concluding that the local law is preempted.”

A sharp conflict exists only where the legislative intent to preclude local action is clear. This preemptive intent may be stated expressly by the Legislature, or it may be implied where the purpose of the statute cannot be achieved in the face of the local rule. The question is whether the local enactment will clearly frustrate a statutory purpose.

Invoking Home Rule wetlands protection, the SJC cites another seminal wetlands case: Oyster Creek Preservation, Inc. v. Conservation Comm'n of Harwich, 449 Mass. 859, 866 (2007) (where State "act establishes Statewide minimum wetlands protection standards, ... local communities are free to impose more
stringent requirements").”