By Igor Studenkov| For the Bugle
Park Ridge aldermen took the first step toward prohibiting minors from using electric cigarettes during the July 10 Public Safety Committee of the Whole meeting.
The city’s municipal code already prohibits anyone under 18 from buying and using cigarettes, but the new ordinance would add the language making it clear that it applies to electronic cigarettes as well. It would also change the fine for anyone who is caught violating the law. Instead of paying a $100 fine, they would have a choice of either paying a $500 fine or attending a drug education class and paying a token $25 fine.
Ald. Marc Mazzuca (6th) and Mayor Marty Maloney felt that the fine might be too steep. The alderman also felt that steering juveniles toward drug education was not the best idea, arguing that this should be schools’ responsibility. But other alderman disagreed, voting to move the resolution forward.
As previously reported by the Bugle, electronic cigarettes are colloquially known as “vapes” because, rather than burning tobacco, they boil a mixture of various chemical compounds, flavorings and small doses of nicotine. Users inhale the resulting vapor, which produces a similar effect as cigarette smoke.
The proposal to change the ordinance came from Anthony Raitano, a Park Ridge Police Department officer who serves as the school resource officer at Maine South High School. As he explained to the committee, he became concerned that students were smoking e-cigarettes without realizing that the nicotine they do have still has negative health effects. Furthermore, Raitano said he was concerned that they were easy to conceal and easy to buy online, and that they could be used to smoke marijuana using tutorials readily available on Youtube. Because the current municipal code technically doesn’t prohibit devices like e-cigarettes, he asked the city council to change the law.
Raitano earned support from Maine Community Youth Assistance Foundation, a Park Ridge nonprofit that works to combat drug and alcohol abuse along adolescents. Its Executive Director, Dr. Terri Collins, testified that, in her experience, the stigma against traditional smoking is strong among teenagers, but the same isn’t true for vaping.
“What we do know about statistics of those things is that the usage has increased tenfold just in the last couple of years,” she said. “And nearly 2.5 million middle school and high school kids are using this stuff, and that’s the key. This stuff is starting in fifth, sixth, seventh grade. A lot of it is because of the fruity flavors.”
Collins also said that the nicotine it contains is more dangerous than nicotine in cigarettes, because it’s pure nicotine.
“If you’re 45 year old and it’s something you’re doing to relax – cool,” she said. “But when you’re talking about an adolescent brain and exposing it to that much nicotine – it’s harmful.”
Maloney was the first to speak, wondering why the city should regulate what he saw as a school problem.
“[School officials] are putting pressure on me to enforce it,” Raitano replied. “I don’t have anything to enforce.”
Park Ridge police chief frank Kaminski explained that the idea behind the increased fine was something similar to what the city has done with drunk driving – increase the fine to the point where the drug education classes are a significantly cheaper option, which encourages more people to take classes. This, in turn, reduced the likelihood that they would do something like that again.
“The goal is to educate young people about problem associated with this type of behavior,” Kaminski said.
Collins testified that drug education classes tend to cost between $200-$250.
Mazzuca said that he felt this was the wrong way to address the problem, arguing that increasing the minimum age for purchase and possession of tobacco products from 18 to 21 was more effective.
Kaminski replied that he thought this might be a good idea on the long run – but that it was more important to do something to address vaping.
“I think this is intimidate concern – how do we change the behavior?” he said. “And I think it would be helpful for us to have at least one tool to address it.”
Both Maloney and Mazzuca said that they still felt that $500 was too large of a fine. Mazzuca also felt that the fact that the police only handed out about a dozen tickets for smoking a year suggested that the problem wasn’t significant enough to warrant a raised fine. He moved to remove the language that would increase it from the oridnance.
“I think, based on what we’re hearing, we’re trying to apply what we do with alcohol to smoking in general,” Mazzuca said. “I’m not sure that strategy makes a heck of a lot of sense. We write a handful of tickets under this, and we’re going to create this $500 violation.”
When asked how he would incentivise drug education if the fine was kept at $100, the alderman replied that he didn’t feel such incentive was necessary.
“I’m not sure education is a way to deal with it,” Mazzuca said. “I’m looking at this – this is a small problem and we don’t write a lot of tickets.”
Ald John Moran (1st) forcefully disagreed.
“With all due respect, I think Ald. Mazucca is missing the point,” he said. “This is considered different than smoking by kids, safer than smoking, and they’re not educated on these products, they’re not educated on consequences of these products.”
Ald. Roger Shubert (4th) said he agreed with Moran.
“I think education is critical to this effort, Ald. Moran is right on point with the fact that it’s a new category, with not a lot of education about it, and kids are starting down this path without going down to regular smoking,” he said. “We can argue and debate whether $500 is a right amount, but education needs to be critical part of this.”
Mazzuca replied that he agreed that education was important – he just didn’t feel this was the right way to handle it.
“It seems like the place for education here is not after it happened – it’s in schools, it’s not once you’ve been already been cited,” he said.
Moran replied that he felt that there was no reason why the city couldn’t have both.
“Actually, what we’re doing here will not only educate offenders who’ve been caught, but it will preemptively educate anyone who hears about this from their friends, as to the consequences [of] their actions,” he said.
Ald. Gail Wilkening (3rd) also supported steering adolescents toward drug education.
“This, I hate to say, is a way to educate the parents who think this is [fine],” she said. They don’t think it’s damaging, they don’t think its harmful. And if hit the parents, then they might take a bit of note.”
Ald. Marty Joyce (7th) asked Raitano whether he felt a $500 fine would be more of a deterrent than a $100 fine. The officer replied that he believed it would, because “it would hit them in pocket books.”
In the end, the amendment was defeated, with Mazzuca casting the only “yes” vote.
Mazzuca suggested another amendment, setting the fine at $250 for the first offense and raising it to $500 for subsequent offenses. But he himself ultimately changed his mind, and that amendment failed, too.
The committee then voted to approve the changes on the first reading. The second and final reading is currently scheduled to take place during the July 17 City Council meeting, which took place after this issue’s print deadline.