FDA Warning Letters Sent to 115 Geek Bar and Elf Bar Retailers

The FDA has issued over a hundred warning letters to brick-and-mortar retailers for selling unauthorized e-cigarette products.

A total of 115 stores, including vape stores, smoke shops, convenience stores, and mini marts, have been told to stop selling almost exclusively Chinese-made disposables. Stores all across the United States have been targeted, in cities as far apart as Denver, Austin, Memphis, Indianapolis, Spokane, Richmond, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and many others.

This huge batch of warnings is the second-largest to be sent since enforcement action began in earnest in late 2022, and the largest in 2024 so far. The e-cigarette brands named in the letters include Geek Bar, Elfbar, EB Design, and EB Create. Around 200 products have been specifically named in the warnings (although some appear multiple times at different retailers) and include:

• Geek Bar Pulse Frozen Blackberry Fab
• Geek Bar Pulse Sour Mango Pineapple
• Geek Bar Skyview Cherry Strazz
• Geek Bar Pulse X Blackberry B-pop
• Geek Bar Platinum Edition Berry Cherry Lime
• Geek Bar Pulse X Banana Taffy Freeze
• Geek Bar Skyview Triple Berry
• Elfbar Blueberry Ice
• Elfbar Dragon Fruit Banana Berry
• Elfbar Cuba Cigar
• Elfbar Malaysian Mango
• Elfbar Pi9000 Double Apples
• EB Design Mixed Fruity
• EB Create Strawberry Banana

As always when these brands are mentioned, the FDA is keen to point to the findings of the 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey, which indicated that around 6% of current youth e-cigarette users reported using Geek Bar disposables. They also cite mysterious-sounding “rapid surveillance data” that suggests the Geek Bar has been identified as “popular or youth-appealing.”

However, figures from the 2024 NYTS show that the brand is not even in the top 5 most popular e-cigarette products among underage vapers. The most popular brands with those middle and high school students who use disposable vapes are:

• Elf Bar (36.1%)
• Breeze (19.9%)
• Mr. Fog (15.8%)
• Vuse (13.7%)
• JUUL (12.6%).

The continued sale of these products is illegal, as no Geek Bar product has been granted marketing authorization, so the FDA does not need to justify the sending of warning letters. But why they have chosen to highlight Geek Bar is unclear when just as many of the products in the warning letters are under the much more youth-popular Elfbar brand.

The announcement, made on December 5, concerns letters issued on November 26. To date, the FDA has issued more than 700 warning letters to firms for manufacturing, selling, and/or distributing new tobacco products without marketing authorization.

Recipients of warning letters have 15 working days to respond, outlining the corrective actions they will take to address the violation and prevent future occurrences. Failure to take prompt corrective measures may lead to further FDA actions, including injunctions, seizures, or civil monetary penalties, as has happened to 140 brick-and-mortar and 37 online retailers to date.