A shadowy e-cigarette company that has reaped millions of dollars by exploiting a loophole to sell kid-friendly, flavored nicotine products says it is suspending sales in the U.S following revelations about its owners.
Puff Bar, a California-based marketer of disposable e-cigarettes, announced the sales suspension Monday on its website. In a phone call with FairWarning, the company’s Chief Financial Officer Patrick Beltran confirmed that U.S. sales were being halted until further notice, but said that international sales would continue for the time being. Beltran would not give a reason for the move. Despite the announcement, as of late Monday the company website still listed other outlets that sell Puff Bar products.
For months, Puff Bar had cultivated a sense of mystery about its ownership and operations. But as FairWarning reported on July 9, a new document filed with the California Secretary of State named Beltran and Nick Minas, both in their twenties, as CFO and CEO, respectively.
The document was filed shortly after FairWarning began an investigation of the company, which was originally registered to a house owned by Minas’ mother in the North Hollywood area of Los Angeles. FairWarning’s story documented Minas’ and Beltran’s history of bending rules on e-commerce websites to sell e-cigarette products.
Even with the disclosure, it’s uncertain who really is in control of Puff Bar, which appears to be connected with other companies in the U.S. and China. In an interview, Minas and Beltran said that despite their titles, their job was running the Puff Bar website. They refused to say who hired them, and claimed not to know anything about another company that owns trademarks for some of the Puff Bar products.
Beginning in 2019, Puff Bar rapidly gained popularity with its wide variety of fruity flavors and sleek design. The company got a giant boost in January, when the Food and Drug Administration banned most flavored e-cigarettes but carved out an exemption for disposable vape devices. Puff Bar, along with a handful of other brands, quickly capitalized. By April, the company was reportedly making millions of dollars in sales each week.
Public health advocates, upset by the regulatory loophole, have asked lawmakers to take action against Puff Bar and other disposable e-cigarette makers. In June, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, demanded that the FDA ban sales of Puff Bar products because the company has allegedly targeted children.

Subscribe to receive occasional alerts in your inbox
Puff Bar is currently the target of at least two lawsuits. On July 1, the Boston-based Public Health Advocacy Institute sued Puff Bar and its distributor, Cool Clouds Distribution Inc., for allegedly promoting and selling e-cigarettes to children in Massachusetts. On the same day, a Florida law firm filed a class action against Cool Clouds in New Jersey. The complaint alleged that a 17-year-old became addicted to nicotine by using Puff Bar products. A few days after FairWarning’s story was published, the New Jersey lawsuit was amended to add Puff Bar, Minas and Beltran as individual defendants. Beltran said he hadn’t seen the latest lawsuit against his company.
While the Puff Bar website is suspending U.S. sales, Puff Bar products are still for sale on various e-commerce websites. One of those is eliquidstop.com, a site owned by Minas and Beltran. On Reddit, a user who claims to represent the Puff Bar company has directed confused customers to make purchases at eliquidstop.
Mark Gottlieb, executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, said he was pleased to learn of the sales suspension, but worried that “those same highly addictive products will soon be available under another brand name and the public health community will be forced into a game of Whack-A-Mole. Ideally, the FDA’s loophole for disposable flavored e-cigarettes should be closed and closed now, before another disposable brand gains the traction that Puff Bar managed to do in less six months.”
Minas and Beltran appear to have done well for themselves in recent months. According to public records, they purchased a home in Los Angeles in early June, and took out a nearly $927,000 mortgage on the property.
Did you like this story? Your support means a lot! Your tax-deductible donation in any amount will advance our mission of delivering strong watchdog reporting.
I can completely see your point ( referring to one of the comments above) about making them prescription so they are available for people who are trying to quit, but even at that kids get addicted to prescription drugs that they do not have prescriptions for. Bottom line is if somebody is going to be addicted to nicotine, alcohol, opiates or other prescription drugs out there it’s just going to happen. There are things that we can do as parents to help our children decide against addiction and take action if they do happen to become addicted, but building things because something might happen or something has happened is not the answer. The only thing that’s doing is keeping the cigarette companies in business. The only reason they want these off the streets is to help cigarette companies keep benefitting from sales. The person that made the comments about flavored alcohol hit it right on the nose. If you’re going to do away with one you got to do away with the other. I’m a recovering addict myself, and addiction runs heavily in my family. When I see a new product like flavored Puff bars out in the market the first thought that comes to my mind is not, what if my child gets a hold of these and becomes addicted to nicotine. I usually think more along the lines of good, another resource for people to wean off of an addicting substance. I was addicted to heroin for five years. I’m thankful to be alive. I shouldn’t be alive. I chose to seek help at a suboxone clinic and counseling. A lot of people call that legal heroin–maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but I went from having absolutely nothing, not even a home to live in, to owning my own home and by far the most important: keeping the children that I chose to have and I’m still on Suboxone maybe for the rest of my life. It’s not as detrimental. Same thing goes for cigarettes and fruit-flavored puff bars. The effects of smoking cigarettes is way more detrimental then a fruity Puff bar. This is all just common sense. A cigarette company has to know that we see right through them. I mean, come on you guys, you should be smarter than that.
I’m so sorry that e cigarettes are cutting into big tobacco’s bottom line, not my problem. Nobody ever talks about the fact that kids are going to smoke and have been smoking for decades…So take your “unbiased” opinion and shove it…
and have a great day.
Lol I started smoking Newports at 16 and now I am 27 and I haven’t bought a pack of cigarettes in an entire month, thanks to vapor e-cig products. Do I think it is much better for my health ? No… but IT IS A LOT BETTER THEN A PACK OF NEWPORTS EVERY DAY. Oh and I started with 5.0 nicotine … now I am down to 3.0 …. soon I will be at none because I eventually wanna quit this too. I am beyond proud of myself and can I really get mad at teens? No.. because I once was that teen.
Em, does peach or raspberry vodka flavors made to appeal to kids??? What a bunch of BS.
As a smart adult I know that my addiction to nicotine is bad! If I didn’t know, I’m very able to read with my more than 2nd grade education the labels on my pack-a-day habit. I very recently started using Puff Bars and I’m down to much less than half a pack a day. I enjoy the taste of them and the lack of smell on me so much more. Do I think they are healthy….again i graduated 2nd grade….no, but I like them more. So my middle age self can’t readily get them because children like the taste of them? Ha… children as long as I’ve been alive and longer before have liked the taste in cigarettes and can get them easily. You just put them back on pure cigarettes with all the chemicals and tar…. which is so much better…thanks for your support. And to the author of the article…. you are doing a job so I’m with you… I got to do what I got to do.. However the size of owner’s home of Puff Bar I bet is tiny compared to the size of the family that owns, let’s say, Camel cigarettes or Smirnoff vodka. So who cares about their real estate purchases? What does that have to do with the price of say sugar in Florida?
I started smoking at 13 yrs old. I am now 37. I NEVER. WAS able to cut down to where I am now. I actually think I am going to quit. One of the FRUITY FLAVORS you want to ban, it lasts me days… Almost 5 for $11. I was paying $11 for a pack of smokes. I seriously just found this product a month ago. I have to drive to another state to even purchase it. Now I find out you are trying to ban them all together. Why do other people think they have the right to make choices for others? Do we not live in the United States of America? I mean come on… Going as far as, after 37 yrs. Of smoking, you no longer are allowed to have a menthol cigarette because Joe Schmoe and Sally Susie say so? With so many craptastic things going on in the world today… Like really?
As a former smoker (of more than 20 years), flavored nicotine products like this are the only thing that helped me quit. I prefer the nice flavors over tobacco or mint/menthol, as I’m trying to avoid things that, you know, taste like the very stuff I’m trying to avoid. My drs are supportive of these efforts to vape, and are pleased I’ve been able to quit for months now. What am I supposed to do when they’re taken away? Just go smoke again I guess. I mean seriously, do any of you legislating idiots not understand I’m trying to avoid tobacco flavored crap, and fruits are a great way to do so. Are adults not allowed to like fun flavored things? Is everything we get supposed to taste like ass for no apparent reason? I think this is just another method of punishing smokers/former smokers for becoming addicted; plus it is a sign capitalism can only punish the people who’ve already been preyed on by corporations, then ostracized and hated, and now punished further instead of punishing companies. You know, my drs would gladly give me a prescription for these, so why not do that? Why create more black markets and create criminals out of adults who were already victims of decades of greed? Its gross that we are an oversight in this. Why not seriously make it by prescription?
This is such bull crap!! Kids are gonna smoke!! Whether its frigging flavored or not! It’s been happening for generations!! Its such a bunch of bull crap that I at 37 CAN’T enjoy my PUFF BARS anymore!! Or MENTHOL CIGARETTES!! WTF!!
What about Cigarettes? Why aren’t you talking about Cigarettes? Oh wait, tha big Tobacco is paying you off for publishing this nonsense
“We’re still here”
– u/PuffBar on Reddit 7-14-20
This is a charade, please don’t fall for it
They’re Chinese.
The bias in this article makes it lose all credibility for me. Try a more professional journalistic approach next time if you plan to be taken seriously.