Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Chapters 5.81 and 8.68, relating to electronic cigarettes and similar devices, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Item 17 is an ordinance with a recommendation to declare an ordinance amending the municipal code relating to electronic cigarets and similar devices. Read the first time and laid over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading. Come again this over to the City Attorney. Do you have any thoughts in the comments? Mr. Andrews. Mr. ANDREWS. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. You know, one of the fundamental principles of medicine and developing good public health is that above all else, we should not harm the public. It has taken us a decade to evaluate young people about the harm of smoking, and there is no doubt concerning the negative about the fact that smoking has no has on the public. While doctors of the fifties in the sixties claim that smoking causes no harm to smokers or people subjected to secondhand cigaret smoking, the millions of premature deaths and families that claimed the lives of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers. It was proven otherwise after the numerous tragedies. Well, prematurely by cigaret we have in recent years started to see a slight decrease in new smokers and improvement in overall public health facts. Nicotine juice use in e-cigarettes is not regulated and does not have any and unformed ingredients. This inconsistency means that there can be no claim that the ingredient in the product is safe. Facts. There has been an increase in the amount of conversations and alibis in schools and in Long Beach. Young people are getting their hands on and use these addictive devices. Facts. In a recent Long Beach Post article promoting the e-cigarettes stated in e-cigarettes have no health risk and causes no major health concerns. While health concerns regarding e-cigarettes may be lesser or difficult than those associated with cigarets and a simple pack, I agree with the safety statement released by the e-cigarette promoters. Nicotine is still being used in e-cigarettes. Studies have also shown that the harm the human body doesn't have a reaction to the vapor, to the vapor. Inhaling for the e-cigarettes. Increases airways resistance for 10 minutes. In addition to creating the airway resistance, nicotine is a known contributor of health diseases. The e-cigarette companies may state that e-cigarettes are safe, but the fact of the matter is that there is no proof without substantial and reputable, reputable scientific evidence. That these. Addictive devices are free of any sort of safe and effective toxins. The use of e-cigarettes in public vapers should be monitored. These companies triggered it, and people who are nonsmokers by marketing fruity flavors and advocate and addicted and their promises of new safe and fun activities. Unless the safety of e-cigarettes have been well documented, it is our duty to ensure that the public is know it. It is not surrounded with these devices unnecessarily. Let's make sure that we learn from mistakes and support this responsible policy. It is a good first step in protecting our public health, and I'd like to move to approve this item. Second, get this promotion. And a second. Let me go ahead and open this up to public comment. Please come forward to start off by stating your name for the record. My name is Michael Shaq and I am the owner of E-Cig City of Long Beach in downtown Long Beach. Is my first time in one of these. Hearings, so excuse my jitters, but I believe from personally that e-cigarettes have saved my life as many as well as many others. They've provided an alternative. And I believe that there's a lot more research to be done before we go ahead and start demonizing those who are using electronic Cigarets. I do also believe there needs to be restrictions and regulations like anything else. I mean, if done appropriately, electronic cigarets can help fund everything that we've been talking about in this unsafe building and building the libraries, but it needs to be done correctly. And the city of Long Beach, I believe, has the has the the need to be the city to set the. How do you say set the bar over how regulations of electronic cigarets are going to go? Because so far every city has been taken the coattails of everybody else and is banning them. I'm too scared. I don't know what's going to happen. Well, why not? We have the places to research. We have colleges here. We have Exxon Mobil that have nothing but biochemists running around here, getting drunk up and down pine. I know this because I live right off of pine as well. I believe that if we do a little bit more research that it's not the same. Because you know what? I light a cigaret using one of these. Right. I cannot light a cigaret using a lithium ion battery which has been certified. So with the regulation that's been proposed, and from what I understand that we want to make electronic cigarets the same as tobacco. It's not doing anybody justice. You're sending your addicts back into the den. They are now going to be triggered with the same oh, I want a cigaret again. It's not the same. I'm not saying that they should be allowed to be smoking and there needs to be regulations 18 over away from schools. But us as adults. Why do we need to have something that tastes like crap? Excuse my language. Once again, what's wrong? That if I want to smoke on something that is like cherry or bubblegum and it's not marketed towards children. I believe that it's an old school stigma that needs to be broken by a new generation that will be taking your seats one day and that technology, outdated tradition. So with that said, I believe that this motion needs to be reconsidered, revised by not only the public health and safety. I've spoken with Linda Vu, with the city attorney. I've spoken with Nelson Kerr over at the Health Board, and I've even cornered Mr. Robert Garcia once in a while, see if I can press him a little bit, because he works at ITI right across the street. But I do believe that the city of Long Beach needs to look more. Thank you for. Your time before making loss. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Go ahead, sir. Honorable Vice Mayor and City Council, thank you for this opportunity. I am Father Jack Kearney and at 3230 Clark Avenue, just across the border in Lakewood, where I'm on the board of the California Association for Alcohol and Drug Educators. Or Kitty Kitty is a group that certifies. The highest level addiction counselors in California. We also train them and. We accredit colleges. And universities in California, Nevada and Arizona at the highest possible standards. We are in one of those schools, by the way, as Long Beach City College, which you should be very proud of for the addiction studies program, that we are the experts in addiction. We know about electronic cigarets. I teach addiction studies at Cal State Fullerton and at Loyola marymount University. I am because I teach the pharmacology of substance use disorders. I have become a nationally recognized expert on electronic cigarets. And I'm here to tell. You, Mr. Andrews, the questions you've asked have been answered. I have the science. Right here of chronic cigarets do not harm. They save lives. They help people quit smoking. Millions of people have quit smoking because of electronics. Or if they do not harm. The science is in. I think you read an old statement that was written probably by the tobacco industry or certainly the pharmaceutical industry, because they're the ones who have the most to lose. By the success of e-cigs, they have been proven. There is enough science to say they're 100 times. Safer than cigarets and. Are by far. Our most effective tool for helping people quit smoking. So we got to go with the most current research. So you have a choice here. You can you can go to press releases from the tobacco and the pharmaceutical industry, or we can go with science and clinicians like me. Who actually help. People on a daily basis quit smoking. Electronic cigarets work. But they are not being marketed to children. The flavors are intended for adults. It is illegal. Already to sell. Electronic. Cigarets to people under 18. That's already been taken care of. We're doing all more research and we'll continue to do so. So I ask you to at least. Postpone or stop this legislation. Which will hurt the people of Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please leave. Can I leave science with you? Actually, the clock over here. Next speaker. Good evening, Vice Mayor and council members. My name is Paula Wood and I am a resident of District seven and I am currently the co-chair of the Tobacco Up in Smoke Free Long Beach, along with Pete Flores. We're deeply concerned. First of all, we'd like to commend the council for moving this issue forward and dealing with it tonight. And we hope that you will vote in favor of this. We have a deep concern about what's going on with the e-cigarettes and the paper products. We notice that many of these or these these these these stations or these stores are cropping up in our neighborhoods. And we're concerned about, even though there may be they're not legally be able to being able to be sold to the young people there on the campuses. We have teen groups. I've talked to our young people and they're telling me they're all over the high school, they're available and the young people are attracted to them because of the colors and the just that it's something new. And so they are in the hands of our youth and we're deeply concerned because this is new and we know that there is tobacco and nicotine involved, and we're concerned that this is creeping up all over the city and there's no regulation. And we support the council in their effort to regulate these and treat them the same as Cigarets. And we ask you to support this tonight on behalf of the coalition of a smoke free Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. Speaker, please. Hi. My name is P floors were from Paula Woods. I am a co-chair for the Long Beach Coalition. Mayor and councilman, this is actually my second time being here, observing you guys and all that. And I, I really just wanted to say with this being a co-chair and, and also. I am a. Coordinator for Project Greater Southern Cal that we deal with educational to youth. And I go to car shows and I educate the youth about smoking and e-cigarettes. Now we revise our our surveys with the youth because we had to put in with the e-cigarettes and the vapes. So I know that this is a ongoing battle. It's been ongoing for a long, long time. And I just wanted to I just want to go forward with this with you know, with the council of hoping to go ahead and go forward with this. And again, thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Vice Mayor Garcia. Council members, thank you for bringing this forward. I think there must be a misunderstanding on the part of either Jack. This does not this ordinance does not prevent people from using e-cigarettes if they feel it helps them stop smoking. What this does do is put nicotine charged, electronic cigarets in the same category as far as preventing the smoking in public places. The gentleman in the plaid shirt gave us a distinct opportunity to understand what happens. We're used to this council not having smoking, but all of a sudden there was this puff of smoke in the air . And I could smell it. And you could. And you don't know what's in it. There's formaldehyde, there's benzene. There have not been complete studies to know what we're breathing from secondhand smoke. So we're asking that the electronic cigarets be treated like tobacco cigarets. The FDA is working on a regulation because of the need to understand better what the health aspects of this are at the Center for Disease Control over two years. The 2011 2000. 2012 found that twice as many teenagers have taken up e-cigarettes. So it went from like 4% to 10%. My neighbor came home and found her son, who was that totally non tobacco smoking youth sitting with an e-cigarette and thinking that that was a glamorous thing to do. So we asked that you pass this so that those of us can go to a public place and find that we're not reading some chemical we know not what coming from one of the electronic cigarets and that our tobacco retail permit process. Watch over these sites so that we know what's happening there and we urge you to pass this. And thank you very much. Thank any of the public speakers up here. Yes. Frances and Frances Emily Tyson Harris and I reside in District one. This is a very controversial matter and I agree on both sides. There are series of facts in. And when I made that comment I'm making in the sense that they're serious, the facts that can affect your health in terms of smoking cigarets which are known to have formaldehyde and all kinds of other things in regards to and cause cancer, you know, aggravate people to have asthma attacks, etc.. That in terms of the e-cigarette, I look at it more like a evade hearing. I'm not 100% familiar with the whole thing about the e-cigarette, but I can say that I do have friends and I know people that smoke and they smoke and they changed to using the e-cigarette and they were able to cut down tremendously in regards to smoking and quite a number of them actually have quit and they feel so much more better. Now I look back at the matter regarding interest in marijuana have could affect you and all of the things about what the federal government thought in the state and everything else. And when I'm hearing everyone and what they're having to say, the federal government, I understand, is in the process of determining something about this matter and how it should be addressed. Well, I kind of wonder if it may not be a bad idea to put this matter off to find out exactly yay or nay what's happening in terms of the e-cigarette. I don't think it's something that has to be addressed right now, this moment, because to me matters that need to be looked at to know exactly, you know, what's happening here. And I do appreciate Lambie's being smoke free. I think it's absolutely essential. I feel there should be regulations in terms of the use of this product. I'm deeply concerned by young people getting their hands on it, but I'm hearing all of these matters and to me there's too many unanswered questions and matters I feel that need to be addressed in order to be able to move forward without coming back and having all kinds of problems on your hands. I think if you get the answers more find on this matter, I think you'll be able to move forward in a matter where it's not going to be so many stumbling blocks. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other public comments after after unexpectedly other public comments came at a good cause, a public speaker less piece. A Roseanne Lamendola. Again, I hope you follow your commonsense and avoid any. Extra additional smoking venues in the city of Long Beach. If anyone is considering this as a a negative move, if your support of e-cigarettes, please look what happened to cigar smoking. A business decision was made to allow cigar smoking within the shops, and somehow that evolved to smoking again in public areas, exposing everyone to increased health risks. So if you are in favor of e-cigarettes, please contain it inside. Do not let it evolve to the point where it has. With our outdoor cigar lounges, there are many young people, young adults in their twenties, male and female, who think it's very hip and cool to smoke a cigaret when again we know this is a documented hazard to your health. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to get behind the council controversial scheme. Yes. Mr. Perkin, in reading the ordinance, is this specific only to e-cigarettes that have a nicotine, that utilize a nicotine product or are all e-cigarettes? It's the direction given on the December 3rd meeting of the City Council was all cigarets, not just limited to nicotine legally. I'm wondering, can we do that and classify the non nicotine non tobacco product as a under the rubric of our tobacco ordinance about candy. Yeah, I'm going to and about the candies. We have followed. Yes, we've followed other jurisdictions and looked at other cities who have adopted these ordinances and I believe were consistent with the other cities where we have been asked to regulate those products as in the same manner as we are currently regulating tobacco products. So the restrictions would be the same as a CIGARET product, so wouldn't be able to be consumed inside an enclosed space. That is correct. What about the issue of the what they call the Candy Cigarets? In fact, we got a letter from the American Lung Association regarding the fruit or candy flavors such as Captain Crunch, Gummy Bear, cotton candy, atomic fireball and Froot Loops. Like a fireball. Yeah. I'm sorry if it's a question. No, what I'm asking those are if they do not have nicotine in them, then they're going to be precluded from selling any product that. It does not preclude the sale. Again, they can that the cigarets we're not banning the cigarets we were regulating them similar to Cigarets. So by definition the electric cigarets we've added those definitions and it is not exclusive to those products containing nicotine. Okay. And then how are we regulating the the shops as we do with the tobacco shops right now? I believe our health department. I may be wrong, but I think our health department goes out and verifies whether or not under the I think our Smokefree Coalition about whether or not that they are displaying appropriately, are they under the same regulations then as the tobacco shops about how they can promote and put advertisement at a certain level and making sure they don't sell to kids? That is correct. The regulations and the the way we've amended the ordinance in two separate chapters, 5.81 and 8.68. We have we have added to the definition section to define the electronic cigarets and then made all of the applicable regulations regarding tobacco products applicable to them. So if it's covered in 5.81 or 8.68, it would be now applicable to electronic cigarets or vaping. And if I recall, under the ordinance regarding tobacco shops, you're not allowed to unless there is a we don't have the cigaret lounges. I thought we. Yeah. The cigar lounge but I don't think you have the cigaret lounges correct. That's correct. I believe there's eight currently allowed cigar lounges. But so if people purchase this product at these tobacco shops or whatever the e-cigarette shops, they would not be allowed to sit on the premises and, and, and use them outside. That. That is the well they would be allowed to use them. When you say outside it, meaning. They couldn't sit in chairs and and use the product because I understand that's our tobacco ordinance. That is correct. You would not be able to consume the product within the within the business or within so many feet of the entrance of the business, similar to the way that Cigarets are currently regulated. And do we have any idea when FDA is like maybe this company could answer that when we think the FDA might be coming up with some kind of recommendations? I know that they're looking at it, but is there any kind of indication when we'd get a report. And I don't know when that would be the status currently moving forward? It's passed the Senate and it's sitting at the assembly and they're looking at a statewide conversation that looks. Exactly like this one. All right. Thank you. We can't we can't we can't do it. We can't ask questions. Sorry that way. But counsel worships with you all. Any other comments? Oh, I do have a I do have a quick question also for for the city attorney as far as the ordinance. So it's my understanding that there there is a difference. All right. As far as on the the vaping cigaret, there are those that have nicotine and then those that do not. Is that correct? That is correct. It's the so the e-cigarette is a device essentially that you can drop with whatever you. Want it to do and uses a vapor. So you can. You can easily use a nicotine product. You can use a non nicotine product, you can use THC, you can put whatever it is you'd like to in there. And it depends on whatever is being sold. And yes, so there are some that are that do not have nicotine in them. Okay. And then those are the four the cities that have done regulation. Have any cities actually separate those categories out? I'm just curious, or is it all been one size fits all? I'm not sure, but I'm not sure about that. I don't believe so. In fact, a number of people, a lot of cities around the area have said we're just going to ban them for a year until we figure out what's going on so that the others that I know of have treated it exactly as it as they would a tobacco product. Okay. And that's consistent with our research on other cities. Where if we pass what we passed tonight, the retail establishments that have opened would still be allowed to be in place, correct? They still be able to sell the products that they're currently selling, but they would not be able to. But establishments or businesses would not be allowed to or wouldn't wouldn't be able to allow people to smoke the vaping cigarets. Correct. If I understand, you're correct. Yes. The stores would would not be closed. They would just not be allowed to consume the product inside of the establishment. Okay. So there are currently 18 shops that have been. That are currently doing business as vapor only shops. So, you know, I'm just going to close my comments here. I completely understand where where this is coming from. I understand the concern. And for me, the only part that's difficult for me to to get over is I have a couple of friends and family members that have particularly one that's been smoking for 35 years and has destroyed his lungs and he's never been able to quit, tried everything in the book and now he has been he has tried to e-cigarette and he's actually been able to quit. And I certainly don't know all the science behind what's in that cigaret, but I couldn't imagine it being, you know, obviously worse than nobody was putting in his lungs before. But but I understand that this essentially is is really about the public. And that's I think what I'm trying to to understand is this this would not outlaw the sale but would just outlaw the use of it as we do for Cigarets. And it would be consistent. With his usage for the last 35 years. That's correct. We have before us. Does this have a one year kind of review as well or a review process? It does not. But at any Tuesday, the council could come back and amend or tweak this ordinance if there was a further desire to do that. And if there is if if tonight if we wanted to put in a, let's say a ah review of this policy, it at six months or a year, would that mean another reading or could be could we add that in if if if the council member agreed to that. The the ordinance is here this evening for first reading so it would not become final until after a second reading. And then 31 days after the mayor signs the ordinance, at which time then you would have your ordinance is in effect with no review, period. But if there was the council's desire to revisit this at some time, they could ask staff to come back at a certain at a future date if in fact it is passed tonight. But if we. If we put a review period in it tonight, would we have to come back for another first reading or could it passed as a first reading? It would need to come back for first reading again if you're making a change of the standards of nature. Okay, Councilor Johnson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think you have a good point. I think no one here wants to ban e-cigarettes. We're not banning e-cigarettes. I think that's simply what we're trying to do is treat them like regular cigarets. And certainly if science comes out and there are turned out there are problems with e-cigarettes or they're less than we expect because certainly change the ordinance and that we have the power to do that. So I think we're open to the science. One thing I want to bring up is I think the vice mayor had a good point about, well, what about if they have nicotine in them or they don't have an equity in them? But the problem there, I think, practically speaking, how would the store owner ever know the difference? Right. So if you're seeing someone vaping, you really are in a position to know, is there a THC in there, nicotine in there, or is it just water or whatever? So I think as a practical matter, I do think it's rational for us to treat all vaping the same because we don't want people to be put in a position of, well, let me vape off of that myself to see what's in there or something like that would be kind of an absurd result. So I do think it's appropriate treat all vaping the same way, you know. So I just want to defend the audience in that way. Any other council comment? See? None. So this is a vote on a first reading will happen and will come back for coming back to council for an additional reading before we move forward on it. Is that correct? That is correct. So, Members, please go ahead and and cast your vote. Vice mayor. I got him in. Motion carries five votes. One vote no. Believe we're now going to move. On to new business. New business. Councilor O'Neill. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor.