MOUNT VERNON – City council voted Tuesday night to amend the proposed vaping ordinance brought forth by Law Director Rob Broeren at the Oct. 8 meeting.
During the Oct. 22 meeting, several council members voiced concerns about the wording of the draft ordinance, as it had outlawed the sale of vape products within the city to those between the ages of 18 and 21 years old.
Council members Sam Barone and Chris Menapace pointed out that this would place different restrictions on vaping than there already are on smoking (the sale of tobacco is prohibited to those under the age of 18), which became a cause for concern.
Council agreed during the Planning and Zoning Committee meeting that smoking and vaping should be treated equally under city law, and on Tuesday, Broeren introduced a new draft ordinance that reflected that thinking.
The new proposal states that “no person, business, retailer, or other establishment shall distribute, sell, permit to be sold, or offer for sale to any person under 18 years of age any Electronic Smoking Device within the City.”
This places the city’s smoking and vaping laws on equal ground. In addition, Broeren reminded council that the ordinance also outlaws vaping in public places, which is parallel to the city’s smoking ban. Council expressed approval of the changes on Tuesday night.
“I think that’s what we’re all looking for,” councilman John Francis said.
However, discussion on the issue continued after Mike Whitaker, Knox County Health Department tobacco treatment specialist, told council he hoped it would consider making progressive changes to both the smoking and vaping laws.
Whitaker advised council to consider changing both ordinances to outlaw the sale of tobacco and vaping products to those under the age of 21. He said there are currently 15 “large” Ohio municipalities that have already raised the age requirement, including Columbus, Dublin and Cleveland Heights. He said that Mount Vernon would likely be “one of the smallest municipalities” in the state to adopt such a policy.
“That is a movement that is going on in Ohio right now and across the nation,” Whitaker told council. “Six states have made it a statewide law that nobody under the age of 18 or under the age of 21 be allowed to purchase tobacco products.”
Mayor Richard Mavis supported Whitaker’s sentiment, as he strongly urged council to consider to take a progressive stance on this issue. He spoke about the high death rate and government expense associated with tobacco usage, which he believes could be partially remedied at a local level by heightened age restrictions.
“I do think that’s on the table, frankly… I look at numbers like $600 billion a year, so many thousands of people dying – pretty hard to overlook that, frankly,” Mavis told council.
“And I know it’ll be a lot less controversy if you say it’s 18 across the board. You can all go home tonight and feel like, ‘Gee, nobody’s hating me tonight.’ But the other side of that is, we’re Mount Vernon, Ohio – you have the authority to set a standard. And as far as I’m concerned, we should give that some consideration.”
Whitaker said the county’s Board of Health is currently considering adopting the ‘Tobacco 21’ standard in its own policy, and that he believed the board would be “rather supportive” of such a change.
Whitaker cited his experience as the Health Department’s tobacco treatment specialist, as he currently has 250 people enrolled in the department’s tobacco cessation program. He said the vast majority of those people began smoking as minors.
“Every single one, give or take – I would say 99 percent – started smoking in their early teens,” Whitaker said. “If we were to increase the age to 21, that’s going to help reduce that to where teenagers are not smoking at a very young age and they’re coming to see me a few years down the road, when they started having health problems and so forth.”
Whitaker called nicotine “the most addictive drug ever made,” gauging feedback from his program’s participants.
“It is the most addictive drug ever made, more than meth, crack, heroin,” said Whitaker, who noted that he’s dealt with people addicted to all types of drugs. “Recovering addicts of my tobacco cessation group, every single one of them has told me that ‘trying to quit tobacco is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.’”
He said he currently has one client whose 17-year old son has neurological problems because he vaped.
“Studies will show that. Studies will show that anybody under the age of 18 that is vaping, there is a potential risk for neurological problems,” Whitaker said. “And so I think if we can increase that age – it’s a public health issue – that we can address and be at the forefront of trying to curb some of these things that we know are a danger to our youth.”
Both Mavis and Whitaker said the Health Department would likely be tasked with enforcing such regulations. When asked if this is logistically possible for the department, Whitaker said the department is “looking into that.”
“Obviously there are other things – unfunded mandates – that we do as a health department. You know, with the smoke-free law, when that went into place we started an enforcement piece of that. So I think we can work with that,” Whitaker said. “There are things that are some of the finer details, but I think we can work with that.”
Whitaker said the Health Department currently defers to the Ohio Department of Health for assistance in enforcing smoking violations in bars and other public venues throughout the city, as the county’s health department currently “(doesn’t) have the staff to go out and do it.”
Whitaker said that when the age minimum for buying alcohol changed from 18 to 21 years old in 1984, “there were significant changes” as a result. He believes that imposing identical restrictions on the sale of tobacco and vape products will have a similar effect.
“There was a reduction in underage fatalities for drinking and driving. There were a lot of things that happened that really should have happened because we increased the age from 18 to 21 for alcohol. Same thing that can happen here,” Whitaker said.
“Obviously, tobacco doesn’t affect our ability to drive a vehicle. But in the long run, tobacco and vaping products will harm our health. And studies will show you how dangerous tobacco and vaping can be to a person, for long-time addiction to nicotine.”
After Whitaker shared his thoughts, council heard from Travis Kauffman, manager of Puckerfish Vape. Puckerfish Vape is one of two vape shops in Mount Vernon, and Kauffman has been a vocal member of the city’s discussion on this issue.
Kauffman told council that he would not be opposed to changing the age minimum for tobacco (and potentially vape product) purchases from 18 to 21 years old. He cited his company’s extensive age verification policy, as Puckerfish IDs “any customer that comes in that appears to be under the age of 30.”
However, Kauffman also said he doesn’t feel that raising the age limit will impact the underage usage of vaping products.
“I was in high school not too long ago, I did go to my fair share of parties where there was alcohol. I know as a retailer, as long as I make sure that the customer is buying is over the age of 18, there’s not much more I can do on my side. But changing it to 21 I don’t think will change that in any way,” Kauffman said.
“I think it’s still going to be consumed, and we need to look into enforcement of people who are buying and redistributing this to underage people.”
Broeren confirmed that “sale,” as defined by the ordinance, does take into account the redistribution of such products to minors. Due to time constraints, council was unable to further discuss the issue after Kauffman’s comments.
Ultimately, council agreed to postpone the third reading on the ordinance, which would be followed by a vote, to Nov. 26. On that date, council will hold a public hearing on the issue before voting.
