St. Anthony City Council considers expanding public park smoking ban to include vaping

The St. Anthony City Council hopes to end public nicotine use with a modification to its current smoking ban. Council members are considering modifying a current ordinance to include banning the use of vapor products in all city parks.

“It is pretty obvious that it [smoking] is not healthy,” Mayor Neils Thueson said.

Under the current ordinance just smoking is prohibited in only three of the city’s 14 parks. The new proposal, already voted on by council twice, would expand the ban to all city parks and would include the use of vapes. Thueson says it is about protecting children.

“Our city parks are geared around family and kids,” Thueson said. “It is obvious when you look at the playground equipment in the background here that it is around our kids.”

The National Youth Tobacco Survey found in 16 percent of high school students said they had vaped in 2015. Another 10 percent said they had smoked cigarettes. The Center for Disease Control estimates more than 9 million adults use cigarettes or vapor products.

“It is not conducive to a person’s health,” Thueson said. “It is not conducive to children. All of our parks have a lot of kids in them in the summer time, just all the time.”

The mayor says that they started looking at banning smoking and vaping after the organization “Escape the Vape” came to them with what he calls pretty startling statistics. He says after seeing them, there is no way he would want his children around with of the activities.

“All I can say to anybody who would be opposed to what we are saying is ‘give me one good reason for smoking or vaping,'” Thueson said. “I don’t think anybody could give me a good reason for that unless you want to die.”

Thueson said the St. Anthony Police Department supports the proposal. He says that’s because vapes can be used for more than just nicotine products.

“You can inject different hard drugs in those and you’d never it,” Thueson said.

A third reading on the change is scheduled for the April 13 City Council meeting. Thueson said if it passes, the ordinance will be published before going into effect.