WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) — Wausau has added e-cigarettes to their ordinance against indoor smoking.
The city modified the language in the existing city ordinance that bans smoking inside of public places to include “electronic delivery devices” on an unanimous vote Tuesday night. The original city ordinance was in place before the statewide ban on indoor smoking and remained in place after the state law was passed.
Public health and safety chairperson Lisa Rasmussen says that smoking with the e-cigs can still have the same sort of harmful effects on those around you. “And that second hand exposure, similar to what people were getting years ago with tobacco, really isn’t much different. So where’s really just evolving to include devices that exist today that didn’t exist when the original smoking ordinance was passed.” She says the city needs to keep up with how people are using tobacco products. “Children that are entering school today have never known anything but clean air, and I think that’s a good thing, but we have to be able to make our policy match products.”
Rasmussen says the issue is also one of fairness. “When folks are in those facilities and they see a person with a vape device, well that person doesn’t need to go outside but the cigarette people do? So you have some feedback from tobacco smokers saying ‘Hey, if we have to be outside, why not them?’”
Wausau’s indoor ban was one of the first ones passed in the state before the statewide ban took effect in 2010.
