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Here’s a story that is becoming far more common in recent months. Black River Falls in Wisconsin was considering hefty regulations on electronic cigarettes, but decided to wait instead. If the regulations had gone forward, it would have expanded the definition of smoking within the city to include electronic cigarettes. This would have led to indoor and public usage bans, age restrictions on sales, and more.

However, The Tavern League of Wisconsin (a trade organization for bars and restaurants) weighed in. Attorney Mike Wittenwyler drafted a letter for the organization which it then relayed to officials. That letter argued that the city did not have the authority to expand the definition of smoking so that it could regulate and control electronic cigarettes. Attempting to do so would be beyond the scope of the powers the state grants to its cities with regards to regulating smoking.

What’s more, Wittenwyler argued that e-cig regs wouldn’t do anything to protect the health and comfort of the public — as was the intention of smoking controls. Black River Falls’ city attorney Dan Diehn stated that he believed Wittenwyler’s arguments to be incorrect. While the city may have the ability to regulate electronic cigarettes, it does seem likely that they were attempting to do so in a technically incorrect way.

Ultimately, city officials decided to wait on making a decision. Even if the city has the right to regulate e-cigs under smoking laws and officials believe they would be protecting public health by doing so, it seems they want to take time to make sure they do things right. That just gives them more time to learn about the issue. More information has almost always been to the benefit of e-cigs.

This is the first I’ve seen of bars and restaurants (or one of their representative organizations) stepping up to fight for electronic cigarettes — particularly the ability to allow customers to use them indoors. It shouldn’t be a surprising thing. There was a strong cultural connection between smoking and drinking for a long time. Bars ultimately lost a lot of business when indoor smoking bans went into effect.

For many places, the ability to recapture that social atmosphere without the smoke could lead to a lot more business without the secondhand complications.

You can read more about the Black River Falls decision here.