Anti-vaping activist says city misled him on education campaign
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Chance Ammirata speaking in Washington, D.C. Photo: Courtesy to Axios
About five years ago, the mayor of Miami Beach invited a teenage anti-vaping activist to address the City Commission about how his nicotine addiction caused his lung to collapse.
- As a TV camera rolled, then-Mayor Dan Gelber laid out a rough plan for city staff to work with the activist, a Miami Beach Senior High grad, on a campaign to warn students about vaping.
Why it matters now: The activist, now-23-year-old Chance Ammirata, tells Axios the educational campaign Gelber floated at the December 2019 meeting never happened.
- Apart from initial conversations about setting up a film shoot for the campaign, Ammirata says city staffers evaded him and never moved forward with the plan.
- "It really just felt like a publicity stunt," he said of Gelber's comments at the meeting. (Ammirata says Gelber invited the media to attend.)
The other side: Gelber, who left office in 2023, tells Axios he was impressed by Ammirata's story but COVID-19 made it difficult to launch the campaign.
- Nearly three months after the Dec. 11 commission meeting, Florida reported its first COVID case and the city issued a state of emergency.
- "Using him became a little more difficult as we got into COVID when classes weren't even being held and most city staff weren't even coming into the office," Gelber says.
Yes, but: Ammirata says city staffers were ignoring him before the pandemic hit Florida.
- "Initially COVID wasn't even an excuse, it was radio silence and then when COVID came they had the perfect response."
A city spokesperson declined to comment but listed several anti-vaping initiatives Miami Beach has rolled out, such as posting banners at schools, public service announcements on the city trolley and online webinars with students and parents.
- "We did a lot to deal with the terrible scourge of vaping in minors and I was really impressed with him," Gelber said.