This likely won’t please some parents and teachers at Howe Sound Secondary.
Council passed a bylaw Tuesday night banning e-cigarette retailers from opening shop near schools, but the late law won’t apply to stores already in business.
Mayor Patricia Heintzman said from the perspective of the District, vaping falls into the same category as tobacco products and cannabis dispensaries. The bylaw update will bring stores that sell e-cigarettes and vaporizers in line with those other products.
“When we wrote these bylaws, vaping didn’t exist. Then all of a sudden vaping is a thing and our bylaw doesn’t address it, and you get, unfortunately, a vape shop right beside the high school. We can’t do anything about it,” said Heinzman, referring to a newly opened vape shop next to the high school on Buckley Avenue.
Vaping refers to the use of electronic cigarettes, which use heated vapourized liquid (often containing nicotine) instead of tobacco. The experience of inhaling the vapour, from special electronic cigarettes, is similar to smoking.
The technology has been praised by some as an alternative to lung-damaging tobacco products, but the products have not yet been regulated by Health Canada.
Health Minister Jane Philpott has said the government has concerns about the products normalizing smoking among young people and the use of nicotine among nonsmokers. “With vaping, we’ve set up the same parameters we have with [cannabis] dispensaries,” said Heintzman.
The District’s exclusion zones would prevent shops from opening within 300 metres of any school, the Squamish Youth Resource Centre, the Squamish Skateboard Park, Carson Place Park or Brennan Park.
The new bylaw is not retroactive, meaning any licensed business that opened prior to May 1, 2017, cannot be closed or relocated by the district.
That includes Van Mist Vapour, the store on Buckley Avenue that would have been prohibited under the new law.
Andrew Betteridge, the owner of the store, said the company didn’t choose the location by the high school deliberately.
“We don’t sell to minors. We’ve had them in here trying, but I think they’ve got the idea now. Every single one of them that came in left disappointed,” he said. “We’re not here to get kids started on smoking, we’re here to get people who smoke long-term off smoking.”
After looking at a Squamish location for over a year he said the location was inexpensive compared with more central downtown places.
