The following is a breakdown and post analysis of the recent Oakley City Council meeting on the subject of banning the outdoor public use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigs, which we refer to as vapor products and Tobacco Harm Reduction alternatives to smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes). I am sad to provide this post analysis by highlighting the kind of blatant ignorance that not only us here, in Oakley, but millions of vapers (users of vapor products who are usually ex-smokers!) are confronted with on an almost daily basis. Let’s start you off with the video of the agenda item here. I will insert relevant parts of the recording along with time stamps.
Please start the video at 46:00 in to get to the agenda item.
46:00
Mr. Galstan is the “city special counsel”, which is technically the official term for “the city’s lawyer”. He starts off by introducing the topic and reason for the ordinance. The paperwork that Mr. Galstan is referring to includes the over 150 pages of research material that was provided to the city by my wife, Sallie Goetsch. They probably also were referring to her Open Letter.
46:29
Mr Galstan says the request for this ordinance comes before the City Council on behalf of the City Council. Which sure makes me wonder WHO on the Council was instrumental in bringing this forward because it is difficult to believe Mayor Pope or Councilmember Hardcastle did so. I am willing to bet it is the Councilmember later caught making direct references to Stanton Glantz’ UCSF “studies”. But we’ll get to that later.
Mr Galstan refers to complaints they had from an apartment complex about SMOKING and describes a brief history in which, back in February of 2014, they tried to include electronic cigarettes into an ordinance. This is the ordinance I took offense to, picked up the fight against, and successfully got the city to drop it from their proposed ordinance. I wrote at length about that at the time.
While we were outside before the meeting started we met with a few other locals who informed us that the folks who had all the complaints in the apartment complex in Oakley had long since moved out. But that, of course, is not relevant to the topic I’m writing about now.
Mr. Galstan then claims that this history brought up an issue where the outdoor smoking ordinance(s) in Oakley were outdated and other cities in the county had already adopted several updated ones. Clearly implying that Oakley should just follow in lock step with other cities in the county.
47:40
Mr. Galstan notes that the ordinance before the Council would lead to an updated smoking ordinance by the inclusion of electronic cigarettes and covering outdoor public areas. In short, Mr. Galstan is saying that it is easier for the city to be lazy about this and just stuff electronic cigarettes in with the smoking ordinance because it would be the path of least resistance for the city. Well, he’s not actually saying that but that’s generally one of the reasons small cities will do this because they would prefer not to be bothered with the overhead of trying to actually categorize electronic cigarettes and vapor products into a category of its own.
48:50
Mr. Galstan explains that the new ordinance and the inclusion of vapor products would apply to all city property, all parks, etc. Funny because I could go to the park near our home and not see a human for hours while fierce winds disperse my vapor. Clearly, it must be hazardous in parts of Oakley where there is not much else but open space!
49:30
Mr. Galstan claims there is no clear answer to regulating electronic cigarettes based on them being a public health hazard. Which is why he advised the city, through the staff report published earlier, to regulate them based on the concept of electronic cigarettes and its vapor being a public nuisance. Has anyone noticed how lately the debate around vapor products has shifted from “it could be dangerous” to “some people might be offended by the sight or smell of them”? This does not come as a surprise as the scientific arguments about the perceived public health hazard these things pose have been debunked and turned into a laughable matter in which only the truly ignorant persist in their claims.
50:30
Mr. Galstan correctly states that evidence shows that vapor products are less harmful to health than regular combustable tobacco products. He also correctly explains that with vapor products, there is no smoke and that nicotine by itself does not cause lung cancer.
51:15
Mr. Galstan expresses the concern that nicotine is addictive and encourages the user to “buy more and more of it”. I have no idea where that comes from but based on that statement I should have been smoking 20 packs a day by the time I quit as the use of nicotine would have encouraged the user to “buy more and more of it”. Also, it does not explain how users of vapor products tend to LOWER their nicotine intake over a gradual period of time. Again, by Mr. Galstan’s uninformed statement, we should all be going UP in our nicotine consumption, not down, and not leveled off.
51:34
Mr. Galstan made us laugh and raise our eyebrows as we stood waiting to be called to the floor by saying that he as a layman would have questions about the use of vapor because;
“lung and throat tissue are not designed to have hot vapors traveling though them over an extended period of time”
How hot is the vapor you’re inhaling? 🙂
It is ignorant comments like that which make Mr. Galstan about the least likely source of any information regarding this topic. I am, however, glad, that Mr. Galstan considers himself a layman on the subject and has as such resorted to using public mainstream sensationalized and opinionated media articles in his staff reports. An act of “research” that clearly would ensure that the layman would never really learn anything.
Mr. Galstan also expressed his belief that this is a fair question for the health agencies to answer.
It was a little difficult to suppress our laughter but we managed to do so anyway.
52:00
Mr. Galstan says “there has been an allegation that e-cigarettes help people quit smoking” but that there are “mixed reviews” about that. Again, based on Mr. Galstans research materials and his insights as a “layman” it is easy to see that he is completely confused on this topic. He then says that Kaiser Permanent and Consumer Reports do not recommend e-cigs as a form of tobacco cessation. Well, we would be surprised if they did considering the sources he just mentioned. Luckily Mr. Galstan concludes that second hand vapor is not as harmful as second hand smoke.
53:00
Mr. Galstan brings up possible harmful issues with the vapor and goes on to state the possible existence of carcinogenic materials and “also some heavy metal”. Last I checked I have not discovered any Anthrax or Metallica in my vapor but I think Mr. Galstan is referring to that study that was done in which they pushed the products beyond their human capable envelope.
Again, Mr. Galstan refers to himself as a layman and has a question about the vapor because he has seen substantial amounts of vapor coming off of e-cigarettes and then makes the following totally ignorant backwards and beyond moronic comment, and I quote;
“I’m wondering whether this helps to concentrate any cold virus or flu virus that they might have in their body and this is coming through their lungs and out into the general areas, especially if you are in close proximity”
He believes this is a reasonable question. Those of us who have not fallen into the shallow end of the IQ pool on the other hand hear that and have two choices. One is to laugh real loud and hard about ignorant statements like that which show that the person expressing them must clearly not have any understanding of the human body, lungs, viruses, or the fact that these will be spread whether or not a person exhales vapor. The other is to try and educate. Alas, we have tried that several times before and Mr. Galstans comments just start getting crazier and more insane each time a topic involving e-cigs come up, as is evident from the above statement.
I think my statement later during the meeting about the belief that the earth is flat because maps are flat might have been a perfect and relevant analogy to the way this man contorts and subjects his neurons in order to come up with some excuse, that to him sounds “reasonable” as to why vapor might be harmful because, as he stated earlier, there is no scientific evidence that the exhaled vapor is harmful. So to provide a foundation, any foundation, for his crazy talk, he came up with this. I wonder if Mr. Galstan was just trying to come up with something to fear monger with or if he’s truly this perpetually bewildered.
In the latter case my advice to the city would be to send Mr. Galstan into retirement, preferably sooner rather than later.
54:00
Mr. Galstan then provides the true basis for the ordinance; vapor could be a nuisance because the smell of the vapor in close proximity, basically, and that the public may not be as aware that the vapor is not as hazardous as the smoke from a combustable tobacco product. So, Mr. Galstan is saying that we have to protect the ignorance of the residents of Oakley by passing ordinances because this somehow helps with the unawareness of people.
Certainly, the only one perpetually unaware is Mr. Galstan himself.
And then of course the moment we’ve all been waiting for, Mr. Galstan states the prohibition on use and possession by minors is in part due to the juices that have flavors that could be of particular attraction to children. Especially these “sweet candy like flavors”. Because we all know, adults don’t like flavors so clearly it must be the children who are attracted to them the most.
Mr. Galstan then continues to claim that this could lead to using other tobacco products and how it could serve as an entry product for young people. Yet fails to grasp the reality (as must by now be clearly evident by his other insane statements) that the gateway effect really does not exist.
He then refers to the use of these products by minors as “e-Smoking”. Which makes me wonder if Mr. Galstan is just unable to hold his own story together given how in minutes prior, on several occasions, he has been very clear that vaping and smoking are two completely different things.
56:30
Mr. Galstan expressed some concern about litigation and whether the ordinance as proposed would stand up in court. But adds that the city “enjoys litigation” but fears the cost of it. Anyone familiar with the business climate in Oakley may understand that the city stating that they “enjoy litigation” is just an insult to the businesses and individuals who, due to the city’s actions, have been forced to sue the city. I know that statement has nothing to do with vaping but I am sure the businesses I’m referring to would certainly consider Mr. Galstan’s statement a “douchebag” comment.
57:35
Questions from the Council are opened. Councilmember Hardcastle starts off addressing Mr. Galstan’s comment about possible germs in the exhaled vapor and how the vapor would be a positive thing since it shows the path of the exhale and as such would allow people to avoid being in the path of those germs. 🙂
Mr. Hardcastle has been very good on the topic as he has been in the past and uses his own personal experience with people using vapor products by explaining that he is not offended by it, can’t really smell it as people have used it as close as 3 feet away from him, and is more than happy to have people use it on his property as it does not result in cigarette buds being tossed all over the place.
58:52
The next questions that were asked came from Mayor Pope “is nicotine a controlled substance?” and “do you need a prescription?” (in relation to other devices and products to assist in the process of quitting smoking).
Mr. Galstan’s response to all that was “Frankly, I don’t know”. Let me repeat that. The city’s lawyer responded “Frankly, I don’t know”. You would think that Mr. Galstan would be aware whether nicotine is a controlled substance or not! He then refers to the NRT products as “anti-smoking things”.
59:33
The floor is open for public comment.
First up, Jim Root of the California Vapor Association.
1:02:25
Next up, Stefan Didak.
1:05:30
Next up, Sallie Goetsch.
1:08:55
Denice Dennis, Contra Costa Health Services. Tobacco Prevention Program.
Denice Dennis decides to refer to other cities in the county that have adopted stricter tobacco control ordinances based on well documented scientific evidence. And if you’re a vaper reading this analysis it may not come as a surprise to you that she was likely referring to the old, outdated, debunked, pseudo-science that lots of scientists who are not financially dependent on any form of tobacco or pharmaceutical money will gawk at, right before curling their toes.
She goes on to cite other debunked pseudo-science that showed toxic chemicals and carcinogens in e-cigarette vapor (by pushing them beyond the usable envelope in a way no normal human ever would or could but they conveniently fail to say so since it would not be in their best interest). I wish I could say that Denice Dennis and her Tobacco Control urges are just based on ignorance but given that her job could be negatively impacted by the continued growth of the vapor products industry it is more than clear that she’s just intentionally trying to mislead the Council. A few examples of her attempts to mislead:
“Consumers really have no way of knowing what’s in these devices”
“There is no regulation so we don’t know how many carcinogens, how many chemicals, how much nicotine is in any one of these brands and there’s also variation across brands as well because there’s no regulation”
Hey, Denice, how many times can you say “there’s no regulation” in a single sentence? Why did you stop at just twice? At least make it more challenging for yourself and aim for three times!
Denice then says that this is not just about public health but there are things equally important that need to be considered. The use of vapor products in public and in the work place could lead to, gasp, “social acceptance of smoking”. Wow. So drinking straight from a water bottle in public or in the work place could lead to the social acceptance of drinking vodka straight from the bottle, is that what you’re saying? Vaping in public and in the work place leads to social acceptance OF VAPING, Denice! Of course, it is not in the best interest of this tobacco control hag to accept that fact because in her mind it just looks like smoking too much.
She’s also afraid that it could trigger a relapse in those who are trying to quit smoking. I wonder if Denice is also afraid of her own shadow. I bet she must be based on the utter nonsense she’s expressing here.
She’s also afraid they could provide models for unhealthy behavior and make enforcement of laws confusing. I think Denice is really grasping at straws here because I very much doubt any law enforcement officer would mistake my “ecig” for a cigarette unless they would also be unable to tell the difference between a straw and a rainpipe!
Denice then starts running way over her 3 minutes of allocated time. Which, I guess we should not be too surprised about. While all the people that side with vapor products tried to respect the rules it is once again the tobacco control freaks who need more and take more and do not care that they are being inconsiderate to others and existing policies.
Denice, now in her proper role as pharmaceutical product peddler, explains, as she runs even more over time, that there is concern under people who are trying to quit smoking but that “these types of regulations do not preclude the use of smoking cessation aids that are approved the FDA”. I was wondering how long it would take for one of these peddlers to say that and it too Denice well into over time. Perhaps she should’ve started with that sentence and left it at that so it would be transparent that she’s a peddler.
1:12:50
Mary Jaccodine of the Contra Costa County Tobacco Prevention Coalition. Or as most of us refer to it, a typical small scale ANTZ organization. A highly popular one because their Facebook page has a total of 68 likes at the time of writing this. Impressive. That’s called sarcasm. But you can go give these people some vape love if you want. Perhaps educate them a bit while you’re at it.
Mary Jaccodine starts off with the extremely misguided statement that the regulations as the Council is considered “save lives”. The only lives I think she might be referring to is that of her and her kind because if it wasn’t for their tobacco control freak-ism they’d be totally useless and a waste of oxygen, might not be functional in any other kind of job or for any other purpose, and would likely die off in droves based on established Darwinian principles.
She believes that restricting vaping will encourage smokers to quit because we’re talking about an ordinance specifically geared towards the inclusion of electronic cigarettes into an established smoking regulation (like trying to fit the round peg into the square hole).
Of course, she has to bring up the “gateway to other tobacco products” bullshit because well, that’s all they have to go on as a means to fear monger because they sure don’t have anything substantial to argue with. And then crosses into the fact that the FAA has banned their use on airplanes. And that 40 attorney generals agreed to send a letter to the FDA asking that they regulate these products.
She claims that federal regulations are notoriously slow and instead of waiting for that, action needs to be taken. Perfectly underscoring what we’ve been seeing and hearing from various ANTZ camps already and further strengthening my statements that we, vapers, need to be vigilant and expect local and state legislation to increase in intensity over the next years. These control freaks are seeing their chance for this and will be accelerating their pace.
So should we.
Then Mary Jaccodine starts repeating what her fellow control freak said, that they are terrified that the use of e-cigs will renormalize smoking and undo all the work that has been done to make smoking socially unacceptable and how that has led to help people quit smoking. Of course, what people like Mary really mean is “quit my way or die”. Their way being the one they wish to impose on you and should not include the freedom of choice that includes vapor products amongst the options. She then attempts to throw the Council a curve-ball by implying that all big tobacco companies are now manufacturing e-cigarettes and that e-cigarettes are thus, logically, a big tobacco industry product.
Mary Jaccodine says she works with students that are “sent to her program because they have broken tobacco regulations at their school”. I would think that sending any kid to Mary Jaccodine, regardless of the program, would constitute cruel and unusual punishment all by itself.
“These products are specifically designed to appeal to youth”
“They are colorful and they light up”.
Adults don’t like colors? I though the ANTZ mantra was that adults don’t like flavors. Do we now have to start not liking colors as well? That’s a new one. I must have missed the memo on that after I became an adult.
Have I already mentioned that you can let her know what you think of statements like that?
Then she says something really creepy. That all these students referred to her for the cruel and unusual punishment it must represent will say that these products should not be used in public. I wonder if this is what they say BEFORE they “enter the program” or AFTER. I am willing to bet it’s after. Do we know what it takes to get out of the program? Does it include regurgitating that which the creators of said program wish to hear?
1:16:12
Wendy Escamilla. This woman always pops up when there’s an e-cigarette related agenda item. You can read what I said about her previous appearance in which she basically admitted she’s a bad parent who doesn’t know how to properly educate her kids, of which she has six.
I’ve seen her give a better performance than this one. She felt nervous and “off” on this one. I guess something must have startled her. Might have been the strong opposition to ludicrous ordinances that she supports and frankly believes do not go far enough. She also always keeps saying she moved to Oakley and bought a house there. So? That makes what you have to say more interesting? More important? More credible?
She says her mother has lung cancer, can’t travel because she’s on oxygen, and can’t “smoke ecigs” because her doctor said “are you crazy, you’d get more problems”. I would have to agree with the doctor on that one because I don’t know if you’ve ever tried smoking an ecig but it’s pretty much impossible. It takes forever to light one up and then when you finally do get a decent flame going the tip usually melts off and molten plastic drips on your clothes or on the floor. It also stinks to high heavens, more so than a regular cigarette. She follows this up with:
“so, ehm, and we don’t know, uhm, the genm, uh, uhm, the young gentleman that talked about don’t know not might, uh, but uh”.
She says “we don’t know the health effects and I as a parent don’t want to know”. Once again further and once again establishing that Wendy Escamilla must be pretty bad at this parenting thing. Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance was bliss for her several months ago and it still appears to be her prevailing preference. Not knowing, not wanting to know, the pillar of education and knowledge. The cornerstone of wisdom. To strive towards the noble goal of not knowing! I guess it sort of fits her, really. After that poor Wendy totally loses is and says:
“and I have to say again and some people may not have heard this, my daughter asked me one time, what are they smoking, it looks like a cigarette, I know there’s ones that don’t look like a cigarette but still if someone is putting something in their mouth and there’s something coming out, I have to answer to my kids and to let them know that that’s not ok, it might be a personal opinion of ours, uhm, of mine”.
Wendy was also clear that she has a daughter with type 1 diabetes and doesn’t want to know how e-cigarettes could affect that. Because not knowing is what Wendy is all about.
She says that maybe we should get more lawyers involved to look at how the ordinance is written because she still wants this passed because she still lives here and bought a house here. Second time in less than 3 minutes that it comes up. It must be important to someone, I guess.
1:19:00
Deliberations!
First up, Councilmember Kevin Romick.
Mr. Romick starts off by how the same thing about the lack of knowledge and information about cigarettes lead to how in the 40’s they were handed out on a weekly basis to soldiers and woman working in manufacturing. Gee, doesn’t that sound familiar. We know exactly what ANTZ material that comes from!
Then Mr. Romick goes off on an angle saying that its still the wild west out there… so far so good because that’s true… and then makes the blatantly ignorant mistake to claim that there’s no regulations on labeling for ecigs and therefore you can’t know what’s in them and because everyone has a different manufacturing process and that you just don’t know all the ingredients that are in there.
Again, sounds familiar. We know that comes from the same ANTZ material and it’s there for anyone to be fooled into believing it. Except the reality is, repeating that written material does not show one has done their research, just that one is moderately capable of regurgitating printed material.
He then refers to a “recent study” by UCSF, you know, Stanton “car-mechanic” Glantz and his little $20 million dollar tobacco control creeps division. At that point I noticed Mary Jaccodine looking over her shoulder towards Denice Dennis (who was sitting behind her) and nodding and grinning like some sort of cartoon witch character from a really bad horror movie. She was obviously pleased with Mr. Romick referring to it. Not sure why this would evoke such an expression of pleasure and approval but my guess is that maybe Mary Jaccodine has a crush on old Stanton, either directly or by proxy, and acts like a fangirl when anything comes up that is in regard to her hero.
Mr. Romick then proves to the world that he is incapable or properly assessing the results of a study. Not that I am entirely surprised about that, really. But what Mr. Romick did was agree on a study that in reality goes like this:
1) You interview 100 people at random in a corporate office and you ask them what they drink. 80% of people say they drink coffee.
2) The next year you go back and ask 100 other random people what they drink. 76% if them say they drink tea.
Now you pull a Glantz-trick out of your hat and conclude that drinking coffee will lead to drinking tea.
That might be about as far as the comprehension of statistical analysis goes for Mr. Romick. Score one for Glantz for fooling yet another person. It’s not so bad if people get fooled by that level of crap but it’s really embarrassing, as I am sure it must be and will increasingly become, for Mr. Romick to make such statements of agreement on the record.
Mr. Romick also continues that several other cities have already passed similar ordinance and implies Oakley should be in lockstep with that to line up and fall into place. This might explain why so many people here have regarded him as “never a leader and always a follower” when he was mayor at the last cycle.
1:21:20
Mr. Romick asks Mr. Galstan (I don’t know why anyone would ask that man about anything!) what ordinances were references and used to create their own and says
“since we’ve already been threatened we’re going to be sued if we pass it”
And then proceeds to mention states and cities that have already passed similar ordinances. Once again showing that it is not always California or New York that others look to as examples, bad examples at that even, but that yes, even small towns in California will look to other places in order to validate their belief that what they should be doing is based on what others have been doing. Once again showing a clear lack of leadership quality, the very thing that has been the case of his time on the City Council if you ask around town on that topic.
Mr. Romick expresses his concern that 15 years down the line it might turn out that e-cigs were harmful and have poisoned an entire generation and is in favor of the ordinance because he could not live with himself if he wakes up 15 years from now knowing he could have done something to prevent it. Instead, Mr. Romick thus choses for a path that at least GUARANTEES there will be further increased deaths from combustable tobacco use instead. I guess that helps him sleep better at night. Or as millions of vapers will describe it, protecting the corporate profits of big pharm and big tobacco.
1:24:05
Councilmember Diane Burgis states that the reason the ordinance is before the Council is because the Council wanted it to be brought forward and says that she has received e-mails from “people that want us to go forward with this” she has not had any interaction with them and have not made any other attempt than to e-mail her and that the Council is not trying to serve anyone else’s agenda.
I appreciate Mrs. Burgis clarifying that. Unfortunately it does however appear that this Council is largely unaware at what and who has been instrumental in driving forward ordinances similar to this one in other cities in Contra Costa County.
She goes on to say that the basis for this is to protect health and quality of life. Except, of course, the quality of life for vapers, ex-smokers, who will be forced to breathe second hand smoke in designated smoking areas. I guess it means that if you were a smoker and have found your way off of tobacco cigarettes it doesn’t really matter if you are exposed to second hand smoke, or at least, not in Oakley.
She states that there’s no intention to regulate what people do in the privacy of their own home. In other words, if you wish to use vapor products in the privacy of your own home, that’s fine. Just don’t use them in public outdoors. This sends a very clear signal that she thinks that smokers have more right to have a designated area to smoke and vapers, ex-smokers, can choose to just stay indoors at home or go be exposed to second hand smoke. I have no idea on what planet that makes sense but it appears to make sense to some people on planet Oakley.
1:26:45
Councilmember Doug Hardcastle. Pretty much the only voice of reason and common sense at the City Council. He starts off with the aspects of good parenting and believes that the city is overstepping their bounds with this ordinance. He also expresses that we’re all paying taxes and that vapor is not like second hand smoke.
Mr. Hardcastle says he has a problem with a city determining where people can walk, how they talk, etc. and that if we want to provide people fresh air they’d have to shut down all the cars because all that combines produces more crap than what people produce out of their vapor cigarettes.
Once again, Mr. Hardcastle states that he has no problem with people vaping, is not offended by it, can’t really smell the odor coming off an e-cigarette, and that people should be allowed to make decisions for themselves and that parents need to parent their kids to teach them right from wrong and how to behave. And then brings up the exemption for incense and remarks that he sure can smell smoke from incense a block away.
1:30:00
Mayor Randy Pope asks if this could be used to restrict the use of a valid prescribed medical device because as written the ordinance could affect medically prescribed nebulizers.
Mr. Galstan respond that “common sense is the great leveler for law enforcement” and that in some convoluted interpretation of the text as written it might cover more than just the products they intended to cover. Let me remind you on some statements Mr. Galstan made:
“I’m wondering whether this helps to concentrate any cold virus or flu virus that they might have in their body and this is coming through their lungs and out into the general areas, especially if you are in close proximity”
And from the staff report:
“Use of electronic cigarettes often creates a nuisance to persons near the user of the electronic cigarette in that the vapor cloud can contain odors of the liquid being vaporized and unknown biologic materials from the user’s body may be contained within the vapor cloud”
I would be truly amazed if Mr. Galstan knows what common sense is or means since he appears to possess so very little of it himself. Yet he fully expects law enforcement to use common sense.
Do any of my readers wish to provide examples of where the expectation of common sense amongst law enforcement has failed miserably? I could provide a few but I would be sitting here for another 300 days just to make sure I only cover the SHORT list of that.
I absolutely love Mr. Pope’s response to Mr. Galstan’s explanation as to why being lazy and careless with the text for the ordinance means that law enforcement should just use common sense;
“That is not the answer I was looking for”
For those who don’t know, Mr. Pope works in law enforcement. I am sure that he, of all people, is very clear on how common sense and law enforcement requires a level of interpretation to be applied which in certain cases leads to ambiguity, miscommunication, or plain misinterpretation. Which, in a law enforcement scenario always leads to a lot of “nothing good”.
Mr. Pope suggests, after looking at the list of areas that would be covered, that a knife be applied to the list of places because some might be right in the middle of a busy area where others are out there in the middle of nowhere and exposed to a lot of wind. Even better, and more admirable, Mr Pope also stated:
“I’m not in favor of waiting or encouraging the federal government to step in, in the nanny state, and tell us what to do in the entire country nor am I really a fan of the state government”
1:33:45
Mr. Pope asks if there is anything in the ordinance that would prevent a parent to provide an e-cigarette to their child if their child happens to be a smoker and want to help them get off of cigarettes and use them in their home.
Mr. Galstan, like a robot, repeats that the ordinance states it prohibits the use and possession by minors. Well, gee, as if we hadn’t actually read that as being a key part of the ordinance. But that was not really an answer to the question.
Mr. Pope is with us and our arguments that it is a parental rights issue and that parents should have that option if they wish to provide that to their children.
1:35:35
Mr. Romick interjects with a question at the end in which he envisions that vaping in the privacy of your home might lead to “vaping parties” for kids. I sort of understood where he was going with that but it sounded like some of Mr. Galstan’s general confusion rubbed off on him at some point.
Mr. Pope decides to deal with it just like we do with firearms and ammunition. Minors are prohibited from that unless allowed by their parents and that it must be written so the ordinance will need to be amended and changed to factor in the rights of parents by creating a proper exemption, similar to the Georgia state law that I referred to in my speech to the Council.
1:39:00
More looking at the areas such as hiking trails, walking paths, parks, etc.
More discussion about possible health effects and lack of research on either side.
More discussion on vapor not being smoke and general confusion about how it fits in. Well, it does not. They are trying to fit the round peg in the square hole. Or the square peg into the round hole. What we’re seeing here is a case of LAZY. Lazy because vapor products belong in a category of their own. Not lumped in with combustable tobacco. But the mere notion that this is the solution does not occur and as such will need some extra help which will be provided to the City Council in the next few days.
1:42:00
And we’re done. The thing will be edited, blah blah, and we get to have another go at this thing.
The total time taken for this agenda item that started 46 minutes into the session was 55 minutes. Clearly not the 15 to 25 minutes that Tom Baker claimed it would take. Just saying that for reference and to once again state that Tom is much less knowledgeable about things than he thinks he is. 🙂
Let us know what YOU think!