A now defunct e-cigarette retailer and its two owners have agreed to pay nearly $51 million to settle allegations that they illegally marketed products to minors in Massachusetts, the state attorney general’s office said Thursday.
The settlement filed in Suffolk Superior Court against Eonsmoke LLC, Gregory Grishayev and Michael Tolmach “resolves allegations that the defendants directly targeted young people for sales of its vaping products through marketing and advertising intended to appeal to youth,” the attorney general’s office said.
The company — based in New Jersey and dissolved last year — failed to verify the age of online purchasers of electronic nicotine devices, e-liquids, and nicotine pods, and failed to ensure that shipments of their products were received by a person legally allowed to do so, the office alleged.
The state’s minimum legal age to buy smoking products is 21.
The company stopped selling its products to online customers in Massachusetts after the attorney general’s office sent a cease-and-desist letter in September 2019.
