The Seal Beach City Council took another look at possible regulations for electronic cigarettes at the Monday, Jan. 13, meeting.
Community Development Director Jim Basham said he is doing his best to complete a staff report and have the ordinance intorduced at the Jan. 27 council meeting.
Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are devices that resemble expensive pens that allow users to smoke liquid with varying degrees of nicotine in them.
The latest proposals for e-cigarette and tobacco regulation in Seal Beach differ only slightly from those discussed by the City Council in early December.
At the time, staff proposed defining smoke shops as stores with more than 16 square feet of surface area display space for tobacco-related products and electronic cigarettes.
However, that definition proved to be a problem because tobacco companies generally require 4 X 4 displays in the shops that sell their products.
This week, staff proposed defining smoke shops as “establishments that primarily engage in the wholesale or retail sale of electronic smoking devices, tobacco products, tobacco paraphernalia, or any combination thereof,” according to the report by Basham.
“The proposed definition would treat the sale of electronic cigarettes (classified as electronic smoking devices) the same as the sale of tobacco products,” Basham wrote.
“It should be noted that display areas in several existing drug stores, convenience stores, gas stations, and supermarkets would not be affected by this definition,” Basham wrote.
Smoke shops would have to get a conditional use permit to operate.
The lastest version of the proposed rules would not impose location restrictions on smoke shops. In December 2013, staff proposed keeping smoke shops 1,000 feet from other smoke shops, parks, churches and schools.
At the time, District Councilwoman Ellery Deaton said she preferred 500 feet.
Deaton also argued against placing a restriction on smoke shops being near residential because every location she could think of backed up to residential property.
On Jan. 13, Councilman Gary Miller said that if Seal Beach has no restrictions on advertising cigarettes, then Seal Beach should treat e-cigarettes the same way.
An urgency ordinance that was extended in September 2013 prohibits shops that specialize in selling e-cigarettes for 10 months and 15 days, ending in August of 2014. Staff had requested time to research the possible regulations for e-cigarettes.
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