US: Westwood looks to Make Changes to Tobacco Sales Ordinance to Include Vaping

Source from:  The Record 07/09/2015

The Westwood Health Department is looking to update an ordinance that regulates tobacco sales in the borough to include "vaping" and will increase the legal age to purchase from 19 to 21.

Vaping is a relatively new phenomenon that involves the inhale and exhale of vapor produced by an electronic cigarette or similar device. While the borough ordinance, titled Tobacco Sales, prohibits the sale of "any product made from the tobacco plant" to minors - those under the age of 19 - most vaping devices do not contain tobacco, but nicotine - a highly addictive drug - that's released with the vapor.

Councilman Chris Montana said at the June 23 council meeting that Health Department has "done a good job identifying the potential risk of vaping to the youth of Westwood." He added that because there are not current statistics on the health effects of vaping, it is not as formally controlled by the state or federal laws as "organic tobacco" is regulated.

Sale of tobacco products to minors "for the purpose of smoking, chewing, inhaling and other personal use, including cigars, chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco, snuff and cigarettes in any form," is currently prohibited under the borough ordinance, and those that sell or offer a tobacco product to a person under 19 years of age may be prosecuted in accordance with state and local ordinances, the borough code says. The ordinance is under review by the borough attorney to revise and expand upon the current ordinance to include vaping and increase the minimum age of sale to 21, Montana said.

The councilman said Westwood is not the first New Jersey town to expand upon current state regulations and laws regarding tobacco sales - a number of towns including Princeton, Englewood, Garfield, Bogota and Teaneck have already done so "to improve the health and wellbeing of residents and community at large," he said.

While the New Jersey Senate passed a bill in 2014 to up the legal smoking age from 19 to 21, state-wide, it has yet to be passed by the Assembly.

The council introduced an ordinance at the meeting to repeal the chapter involving tobacco sales in its entirety, and it will be taken up for consideration for final passage at the next meeting on July 21.

Montana explained that the Westwood Health Department has the authority to introduce and pass their own set of ordinances and the council does not want to have ordinances that overlap or contradict each other. The Health Department planned to introduce its new ordinance at its July 8 meeting. Enditem