§ 36-19. Findings.

(a)

Smoking creates the hazard of injury to the personal health of those in the environment of such smoke as well as the potential of damage to property that may result from the incendiary nature of such activity. It has been determined that breathing ambient smoke is a health hazard to both smokers and nonsmokers. Cigarette smoking also produces several substances that are considered hazardous to health including carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, nitrous oxide and formaldehyde. Secondhand smoke (68 percent of the total smoke produced by a cigarette) affects the health of the bystander, interfering with respiratory tract defenses, often causing nonsmokers to have allergic or irritative reactions, and is a known cause of lung cancer.

(b)

Because the hazards of smoking have a potentially harmful effect, material and direct, on the public health, safety, welfare, comfort, and property of residents of the city, it is necessary and desirable to establish regulations that prohibit smoking in all enclosed public places, in all enclosed places of employment, near entrances to all such public places and places of employment, in and near open-air public dining areas, and within certain unenclosed public places. The corporate authorities of the city adopt the findings, conclusions and reports of the Surgeon General of the United States regarding the effects of secondhand smoke as further support for this chapter.

(c)

Alternative tobacco and nicotine delivery products have recently become available to the public in the commercial market. E-cigarettes, or vapor cigarettes, are an alternative nicotine product which contains nicotine and other chemicals which are turned into a vapor or steam that is inhaled by the user and then exhaled. Although there is limited research on their health risks, the United States Food and Drug Administration notes that the solution used in e-cigarettes contains toxic chemicals found in antifreeze and several other cancer-causing chemicals, such as nitrosamines.

(d)

The concentration of these chemicals in e-cigarettes is not definitively known; the potential harmful effects and addictiveness appear to vary based upon the brand and degree of vaporization selected by the user. Research illustrates that nicotine can affect brain development in children and teens. The vapor emitted by e-cigarettes is in aerosol form that has the capacity to deeply penetrate lung cells and the cellular lining of the organs made up of these cells.

(e)

An article published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported a study performed using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy which permitted researchers to look at vape aerosol after vaping. The researchers found that the pre-vaping liquid breaks down into formaldehyde and that the reaction between an electronic aerosolizer, propylene glycol, glycerol and formaldehyde creates a formaldehyde-releasing agent called formaldehyde hemiacetals, which are known as industrial biocides. Although small amounts of formaldehyde are not dangerous, higher levels are strongly associated with certain cancers, according to the international agency for research on cancer, making it one of 114 compounds known as carcinogens. The city council adopts these findings in the New England Journal of Medicine as a basis to support these amendments.

(Code 1996, § 52-1; Ord. No. F-1207, § 2, 10-2-2006; Ord. No. F-1888, § 1, 10-5-2015)