Commissioners hit pause button on vape ordinance

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DAWSONVILLE, Ga. – County commissioners were prepared Thursday to end the sale of flavored vape products and prevent vape shop owners from having their business license renewed. But the compelling and passionate argument of dozens of consumers and vape shop owners caused them to reconsider – for now.

The Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to table an ordinance that would have put four specialty vape shops out of business and impacted thousands of their customers.

The proposed ordinance would define a specialty vape shop as one whose sales of alternative nicotine products and vapor products, combined, exceeds 25 twenty-five percent of sales.

Those who pleaded with commissioners came from Dawson, Cherokee, Paulding and Gwinnett counties. One man came all the way from Warner Robins. Many repeated the same theme: Vape products get smokers off cigarettes. Another man who smoked cigarettes for 40 years said flavored vape products were the only way he could quit. Other smokers said without flavored vape products they were afraid they would go back to cigarettes.

Jamie Wheatley, owner of The Vaperz Den, said, “The proposed vapor ban would push people back into a more harmful choice. There is something in this ordinance that no specialty vapor shop could operate in this county. There are four that it would force out of business.”

Wheatley continued, saying, “We know the underage thing is a big deal. We’re the ones that card at the door. You can’t walk into any one of these specialty vape shops without being of age. I would like to ask if there is a way we could table this ordinance and schedule some one-on-one meetings with you guys to educate and inform you about what it is we do and come to some sort of compromise that we can continue to do business.”

Their comments obviously had an impact on commissioners.

Julie Hughes-Nix who made the motion to table a vote on the proposed ordinance said,

“I appreciate your comments. Everyone up here is listening to you because we care. I want to learn more. I think we need to do a better job of checking into what we need to do here.”

Her words were interrupted by a long, very loud applause. “So my recommendation to this board is that we table this and go back to the drawing board.”

Commission Chairman Billy Thurmond said, “There has been a lot of information brought forward tonight that needs to be investigated.

 

 

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7 Comments

  1. Nathan Hill September 22, 2019 at 10:07 pm

    Ridiculous going by the handful of vaping accidents and the latest in people receiving bad batches of the Juice itself lets be Honest and state that even if it were in the 100s of people getting ill or injured this can all be remedied by just purchasing from reputable sources and by learning Ohms law to stop the incident where a few people have had injuries via Modifications of the actual machine and by purchasing cheap quality Vaporisers themselves ! I’m am in no way making light of the injuries sustained by these people nor am I saying that lung issues and infections due to purchasing from a non reputable means or the making of home made concoctions but all these numbers even if we’re Ten fold PAIL in comparison of the Millions of people that are and will Die every Day from lung cancer Proven to come from smoking tobacco products! Obviously these Tobacco Giants have a Huge pull on this outcome due to the major loss in revenue and the Governments Massive tax on Tobacco itself .Surely it does not take a Genius too see that Vaping is a way safer way of intaking of Nicotine itself as anybody that has been a Smoker and switched to Vaping has found that it is the most effective way to reduce ,Stop or even continue to intake their nicotine without the other thousand or so chemicals and tars that are totally Proven to KILL ,Harm the unborn and harm others through passive intake of Tobacco products .
    In concluding a child could tell you that Vaping is and Has to be kept as the most effective means of Quiting Smoking ! Seems to me just like the coal and oil industries that are Huge entities would rather continue to KILL then to really care about the human Aspect as usual in return for finances! As with Coal it can be completely done away with and could have been More than 50 years ago with so many non polluting substitutes for energy! And the Oul Giants have also known for Decades that the humble Hemp plant and seed could make such a superior fuel also nearly 100 percent renewable and also non polluting ! Come on there has to come time for the Big change in all the above for the sake of a complete Issue on the health of Humans NOT JUST THE REVENUE OR BILLIONS You complete Greed mongers have had a Good run at the Expense of the humans RACES Health up till now For God Sake to be at this day and age SURELY PEOPLE WE NEED TO PULL TOGETHER IN MASS as we just keep allowing these mongrels to kill us off and Get paid in the process ! IF WE LET THIS CHOICE FOR VAPING OVER CIGARETTES PASS BY we all are writing our own DEATH CERTIFICATE! As small of an issue that most people think it is it’s still one more Human Right we are giving away to thes Huge Companies that care more for Money than any one of our lives ! please Consider All of this extremely Carefully PLEASE !
    Mr Nathan Hill
    [email protected]

  2. Dena Brown September 23, 2019 at 1:53 pm

    Thank you for reporting on this! I am so glad to hear that the county commissioners were willing to listen and to consider information brought before them.

    My husband had smoked for nearly 30 years and had tried everything to stop when a friend introduced him to vaping. He now vapes a few different flavored juices, but has cut his nicotine down from 24 mg to 3 mg. He is still struggling to try and break the nicotine habit entirely, but the only way he is going to do that is with 0 nicotine flavored juices. Without the flavored e-juice, he is very likely to pick smoking back up for the nicotine.

    Sincerely,
    Dena Brown

    • Bill Johnson September 27, 2019 at 3:47 pm

      Thank you for reading Fetch Your News

  3. Karlo Leenhouts September 24, 2019 at 3:15 pm

    Thank you for sharing this Bill,

    I hope this action will be followed at National and International scale. I like to read what has happened after the meetings. I’m very interested in the outcome of this.. Vaping will rescue more than a billion lives all over the world. Banning vaping will kill thousands of people because they will resume smoking cigarettes. Thank you for this article.

    Yours sincerely,
    Karlo Leenhouts, The Netherlands.

    • Bill Johnson September 27, 2019 at 3:47 pm

      Thank you for reading Fetch Your News

  4. K Pettersen September 29, 2019 at 9:14 pm

    Great to see some common sense by a City Commission in play, while all the media hysteria surrounding illegal THC cartridge illnesses is giving the responsibly manufactured nicotine vapor products guilt by association from similar devices.

  5. best NZ vape juice April 11, 2020 at 6:45 pm

    How informative is this blog! All countries and international countries should follow this action. Really a great initiation. Thank you for sharing. I have also found this resource Irresistiblevapehouse.co.nz useful and its related to what you are mentioning.

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