PANAMA CITY BEACH — E-cigarette smoking in city buildings and some park areas still will be allowed after the City Council on Thursday decided not to move forward with an ordinance that would have banned it.
Panama City Beach Councilwoman Josie Strange’s motion to pass the ordinance on first reading received no second.
Councilman John Reichard said he couldn’t support the ordinance at this time because he needs more unbiased information on whether smoking e-cigarettes is safe or not.
“I feel like don’t know enough about this,” Reichard said. “I’m a person whose parents both died from smoking, so I’m very interested in it.”
Councilman Keith Curry questioned why the city was getting involved in the issue. He said he hasn’t heard of anyone complaining about people smoking e-cigarette in city buildings.
“I’d like to see evidence from employees and the public where we have a problem before we pursue this any further,” he said.
Curry questioned “what great crisis occurred in our city” to cause the proposal to be presented.
Strange said she brought the issue forward after two employees in the tag office complained about customers smoking e-cigarettes.
“They both had bad reactions to vapor and asked the person to leave,” she said.
Strange said the customers refused to leave because they said there was no ordinance against smoking e-cigarettes.
That’s why she asked the city’s legal staff to research the subject, she said.
“We’re supposed to be a healthy campus,” Strange said. “If we have one employee complaining, there is going to be more that follow.”
Curry said if a customer was disruptive in a city office, they could have been escorted off. He said he doesn’t see the need for government to legislate healthy lifestyles.
Mayor Gayle Oberst said after the motion failed that council members could bring the issue back for discussion at a later date.
If the ordinance eventually was approved, Panama City Beach would have become one of five governments in Florida to have enacted laws regulating the use of e-cigarettes.
The ordinance would have prohibited e-cigarette smoking in areas of city property where regular smoking is banned. That would have been inside city buildings and areas of parks where people congregate close together.
The proposed ordinance stated that the city “is concerned about a potential public health crisis caused by the use of e-cigarettes.” It adds that it aims to “curb the use of e-cigarettes until reliable studies and data are available on the potential health risk to users and the impact of secondhand emissions.”
A cigarette shop owner and a businessman who manufactures the nicotine for electronic cigarettes urged council members to wait until they studied it more.
Sam Markopoulos, the owner of Sweet Southern Vapers in Valparaiso, said e-cigarettes are safe and he passed out literature to the council to bolster his case.
“What I’m asking the City Council to do is to do their due diligence to have complete research, not just my piece of paper from one university,” Markopoulos said.
“I’ll help you organize a workshop so you can become educated,” he added.
Michael Tyler, the owner of the Smokin’ Vapor shop in Panama City Beach, said there have been many studies about e-cigarettes that have concluded that vaping is harmless.
In other action, the council:
- Approved on first reading an ordinance that allows the council to cancel or reschedule the second City Council meeting in November and December.
- Approved a resolution to close a portion of South Thomas Drive on Oct. 21 for the second annual Ironman IRONKIDS Fun Run. Traffic west of 9450 S. Thomas Drive will be detoured to Thomas Drive from 3 to 5 p.m.