LAGUNA HILLS – Concerns about the potential consequences of electronic cigarette use spurred the City Council on Tuesday to add the devices to its smoking regulations.
The move means the use and sale of the devices will come under the same city ordinance that governs smoking and the sale of tobacco products.
In April, with e-cigarette shops popping up throughout the county, the council asked city staffers to look into the health effects of the battery-powered devices, which are designed to vaporize a liquid that typically includes nicotine.
According to a report by Greg Simonian, Laguna Hills’ city attorney, more than 140 cities in California have already regulated e-cigarette use or sales in some manner. The sole state law pertaining to e-cigarettes forbids the sale of the devices to minors, he said.
A common approach, Simonian wrote, has been to treat the devices in the same manner as conventional cigarettes and other tobacco products.
That’s the approach Laguna Hills decided to take, too.
Businesses that sell the devices and the liquid used with them are not expected to be affected.
The addition of e-cigarettes to the city’s smoking regulations means the devices will, like conventional cigarettes and other tobacco products, be barred from use in places of employment and most public places.
Violating the law is an infraction; doing so four times in one year can be prosecuted as a misdemeanor.
The ordinance also bars selling such products from vending machines or through a self-service display. Violating that provision is a misdemeanor.
Adding e-cigarettes to the city’s ordinance, officials said, will make it easier for law enforcement to enforce smoking regulations, since some of the electronic devices look like conventional cigarettes.
Three speakers asked the council to develop regulations pertaining specifically to e-cigarettes, instead of folding the devices into the existing regulations, for fear that future restrictions on those products would affect the electronic devices.
However, Simonian told officials that were additional restrictions to come down pertaining to tobacco products, the council could change the ordinance so e-cigarettes would remain unaffected, if that is what they wanted to do.
Councilwoman Melody Carruth said that adding e-cigarettes to the ordinance is also intended to protect people in the vicinity of users of the devices from “passive vaping.”
She likened the decision to when the city established its smoking regulations with the idea of protecting people from secondhand smoke.
The vote was 4-1 with Mayor Andrew Blount opposed. He cited his concern for potential litigation, although Simonian said the potential is low for legal action against the city in connection with the regulations.
For more information regarding vapor laws and updates on new products visit www.vulcan-vapor.com
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