Orange Beach Is Backing Off E-Cigarette Ban

In Orange Beach, Alabama, is citing a need for more input from the business community and research, the council is backing off plans to ban Electronic Cigarettes and other alternative smoking devices from public places and workplaces.

“We’re going to wait until we all feel like the due diligence is done and we have adequate justification based on current research to make a decision,” Mayor Tony Kennon said.

Councilman Jerry Johnson said he’s talked to the owner of Cosmo’s and Cobalt who already does self-policing and restricts “vaping,” like regular smoking, to a designated outside area at his restaurants.

“He has that right to do that,” Johnson said, “and each business has that right to do that. So we decided just to wait, probably to the fall and get some more feedback. But right now there’s not a  lot of push back, and so instead of hastily doing it we thought we would wait.”

The proposed amendment to the city’s 2008 smoking ordinance would prohibit the use of alternative smoking devices, such as e-cigarettes, e-pipes and hookahs, in enclosed public places, such as restaurants, bars and retail stores as well as places of employment and sports facilities. The majority of the targeted devices use a battery to heat e-liquid, to produce vapor that is inhaled.

“I think the research is there, I really do,” Kennon said. “But I want input from our restaurants. I want input from our nigh spots, from anyplace where they see a lot of use. I want to know what the proprietors of the business want.”

It also boils down to an over-reaching government, they mayor said.

“It comes from the perspective that we all feel like there’s too much government intervention into private lives,” Kennon said. “So when you complain about government intervention like I do and then you turn around and you’re part of government intervention, you just want to make sure that you can justify it.”