Cleveland (OH) bans vaping at parks (according to one news blurb), but cannot find new law

[Bill Godshall]

According to one badly written news article at a source I never heard of, Cleveland (OH) City Council banned vaping at parks during last week's council meeting.
Cleveland Bans E-Cigarette Smoking / ideastream - Northeast Ohio Public Radio, Television and Multiple Media

It appears that it only applies to outdoor parks and outside some city owned buildings, but the article's headline is inaccurate, and the artilce is confusing (and badly written because the idiot author claimed the measure would help reduce smoking).

But I couldn't find the proposed ordinance/resolution/policy anywhere at the City Council's website
http://portal.cleveland-oh.gov/CityofCleveland/Home/Government/CityCouncil

Its also not mentioned in last week's publication "The City Record"
https://www.dln.com/cr/index2014/July162014.pdf

 

[Painter_]

I posted this last week in News and Media. The source is idea stream which is the group that owns the public TV (WVIZ) and radio station (WCPN) outlets in Cleveland. I would suspect that they would be a reliable source but I checked the city council minutes and cannot find record of it in the minutes.

 

[rothenbj]

This could be the first Vapor regulation- if it appears to be a regulation and is reported as a regulation but there is no regulation it becomes a regulation.

 

[Bill Godshall]

Painter wrote

I would suspect that they would be a reliable source but I checked the city council minutes and cannot find record of it in the minutes.

I'm not doubting that Cleveland City Council banned vaping at certain locations, but I'm trying to find out specifically where vaping was banned by the council (as the news article contradicted itself). Since the reporter inaccurately claimed that the city's vaping ban would reduce smoking, I don't consider that reporter to be a reliable source for news (but then again virtually all news media have made false and misleading claims about e-cigs).

Please note that an Ordinance is legally required to ban vaping in workplaces and public places, while municipalities can more easily (and typically without any public input) approve municipal policies to ban vaping (or anything else) on property owned by the municipality. This was clearly the latter type of municipal policy.

 

[Kent C]

http://www.clevelandcitycouncil.org/committee-calendar/?from_date=07/16/2014&to_date=07/16/2014



Committee of the Whole
July 16, 2014 @ 9:00 AM


DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Ord. No. 695-14

By Council Member Cimperman

To amend Sections 235.01 and 235.02 of the Codified Ordinances of Cleveland, Ohio, 1976, as amended by Ordinance No. 473-11, passed April 25, 2011, defining smoking to include alternative nicotine products, including electronic cigarettes, in the smoking ban on City property.

Remarks by Director of Public Health Department: See Legislation.

Remarks by Director of Law Department: There is no legal objection to the passage of this legislation if amended.

 

[KODIAK (TM)]

To amend Sections 235.01 and 235.02 of the Codified Ordinances of Cleveland, Ohio, 1976, as amended by Ordinance No. 473-11, passed April 25, 2011, defining smoking to include alternative nicotine products, including electronic cigarettes, in the smoking ban on City property.

Alternative nicotine products? I pity the poor basterd caught chewing Nicorette gum while waiting in line at the DMV. Remind me to add Cleveland to places I'll never go. (And my world is getting pretty small these days)

 

[Jman8]

There is no legal objection to the passage of this legislation if amended.

How the heck does one get away with saying that?

 

[dragonpuff]

According to one badly written news article at a source I never heard of, Cleveland (OH) City Council banned vaping at parks during last week's council meeting.
Cleveland Bans E-Cigarette Smoking / ideastream - Northeast Ohio Public Radio, Television and Multiple Media

From said article:
"Public health people see e-cigarettes as a renormalization of tobacco use."

Public health people? Really?? This is coming from the county Health Commissioner

I know plenty of "public health people" who would disagree with you sir

 

[DaveP]

The sad part is that this official is probably more informed than the people who elected him.

Why can't people understand that vaping is not smoking and it should be encouraged, not banned? Eventually there will be honest evaluations of ecig juice and finally the people will be able to make an informed decision.

The first thing they need to understand is that it's not smoke, it's water vapor. The second thing I'd like people to understand is that it contains nothing that's harmful to the vaper or the bystander. Once those two things are in the category of general knowledge, we will have acceptance.

http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/08/kentucky-center-for-smoke-free-policy.html

The Rest of the Story

If the Kentucky Center for Smoke-free Policy is correct, then the use of nicotine inhalers such as Pfizer's Nicotrol poses a grave danger to the public, as the nicotine exhaled by users may "react with a normal substance in the air to form cancer-causing agents that off-gas into the indoor air" and put people at risk of cancer.

After all, users of Nicotrol are also inhaling an aerosol mist that contains nicotine. If they, like vapers, are exhaling large amounts of nicotine that may react with ambient nitrous oxide to form carcinogens, then anyone who lives with a Nicotrol user or is exposed to Nicotrol use in a public place may be exposed to carcinogens.

<snip>

Before all of you Nicotrol users out there start to panic, you ought to know the rest of the story. First of all, there is no credible evidence that even with thirdhand smoke, the deposition of nicotine on surfaces and its reaction with ambient nitrous oxide results in levels of, and exposure to carcinogens that are substantial enough to pose a risk to humans. So even if nicotine was present in appreciable amounts in "secondhand vapor," there is no documentation that it would pose any risk.

Second, and most importantly, there is no evidence, and little reason to believe, that there is any substantial release of nicotine into the air as a result of vaping. Unlike cigarette smoking, where nicotine is present in the sidestream smoke, there is no sidestream vapor produced by an electronic cigarette. Instead, the vapor is directly inhaled and so the only "secondhand" exposure is that resulting from the exhaled vapor from the user.

It is important to now recognize that nicotine is readily absorbed in the lungs. In fact, nearly 90% of inhaled nicotine is absorbed by the smoker and therefore, the levels of nicotine in exhaled smoke are quite low. The same phenomenon would also be true with vaping. The vaper is going to absorb the overwhelming majority of nicotine so there will be very little nicotine in the exhaled vapor. This is why any carcinogenic risks resulting from exhaled nicotine are likely to be negligible. And this is in fact why the FDA is not concerned about any potential carcinogenic risks resulting from the widespread use of Nicotrol inhalers.

This is the article from which he derived the 90% inhalation number for tobacco cigarettes. While it might be higher for microscopic particles of combustion, it should be similar for mist droplets. There's also no sidestream vapor from an ecig. All exposure to bystanders is from the exhaled vapor.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1675218/pdf/brmedj01472-0013.pdf

 

[Kent C]

How the heck does one get away with saying that?

Likely because the Director of the Law Department thinks that since a majority of council voted for the amendment, then it's lawful. IOW, all that matters is democracy, without any consideration of actual laws, rights, precedents, etc. Iow, the type of reasons why the Founders rejected a Pure Democracy.

"Which is better - to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one mile away?" (attributed to) Mather Byles, Sr. Boston 1770