Nicotine ban in Rexburg city parks

The Rexburg City Council is including a ‘no nicotine’ regulation to their city parks rules and regulations.

For years, the city has banned cigarette smoking. With new nicotine products on the market, the city is now looking to include all of them to the list.

“I guess it kinda depends, it depends on the science behind it, if it really does affect people, then yeah you probably should ban it in public areas,” said Rexburg resident, Ruben Decker.

Rexburg is known for its family-friendly atmosphere and culture.

“Just about anywhere in Rexburg, I haven’t observed it personally. So I happen to wonder if that ordinance is really necessary,” said frequent park goer, Maria Fernandez.

It’s a culture, the city would like to keep.

“Since there are new products coming out that are nicotine type products we decided to go a little bit further and ban all kinds of nicotine products, vaping, chewing tobacco, things like that in the parks. Just in an attempt to keep our parks family friendly and cleaner and things like that,” Rexburg Mayor Jerry Merrill said.

Planning for the future is what the city council is doing.

“It hasn’t been a huge problem and probably mainly because we have had the no smoking ban for years and people are used to it. But we just wanted to try to get in front of the issue before it becomes a big problem so that people are used to it and they don’t think they can go in and do those kinds of things and then find out that they cant. We just want to get in front of it.”

While many haven’t investigated the new nicotine products available, they only have one concern.

“I don’t really know much about vaping, but if anything is safe and not harmful for children, I don’t have a problem with, it’s just the issue of things that can be harmful for kids to inhale,” said Kristi Gonzalez.

The city council will vote on this proposal Wednesday at the city council meeting.