BANGOR, Maine — The City Council will consider an ordinance to prohibit “vaping” via electronic cigarettes and other devices in all public places where state law currently prohibits smoking.
The proposed ordinance would additionally provide a 20-foot buffer around all playground and picnic areas in city parks where both smoking and vaping would be prohibited. Smoking is currently allowed in city parks.
Voting 4-1 Monday night, the council’s Government Operations Committee approved a motion from Councilor Joe Baldacci to recommend the ordinance to the full council.
Director of Health and Community Services Patty Hamilton estimated tentatively that it would take city staff about a month to draft the proposal.
The decision came as Hamilton approached the committee with a recommendation to add vaping to the city’s tobacco-use policy for city employees. During discussion, she suggested the ordinance as a more comprehensive option.
The committee agreed.
“There’s just so many unknowns about this vaping,” said Councilor Patricia Blanchette. “To ignore it is dangerous because people are being exposed to all these poisons.”
Hamilton told the committee that the short- and long-term health effects of vaping nicotine were unknown, but studies had shown it contained formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, and that e-cigarette use was growing among minors.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a 2014 youth survey showed that 13.4 percent of high school students and 3.9 percent of middle school students admitted to vaping within the past 30 days.
Councilor Pauline Civiello, who chairs the committee, cast the only dissenting vote, saying that treating vaping the same as smoking went beyond what she felt the City Council could “comfortably pass” and that prohibiting smoking in portions of city parks required more discussion.
“As soon as we say you can’t smoke in a park, then you’re going to tell people they can’t smoke on the sidewalk while they’re walking their dog,” she said. “I just have a problem with that. Where do we stop?”
Councilor’s Baldacci, Blanchette, Nelson Durgin and Gibran Graham voted in favor.
State law currently bans smoking in all workplaces, enclosed public places and outdoor dining areas with several specific exemptions such as hotel rooms designated for smoking. It also bans smoking in cars when any person under the age of 16 is present.
Smoking is allowed outside so long as the smoker is at least 20 feet from a door or window and smoke does not encroach on any place where smoking is prohibited.
Baldacci’s motion included a provision to ban vaping in cars when minors are present.
The Bangor proposal comes about a month after the Portland City Council banned vaping in public places.
Follow Evan Belanger on Twitter at @evanbelanger.