After much debate, the Seal Beach City Council voted to extend the moratorium on any new smoke shops and e-cigarette and drug paraphernalia retailers on Monday night for 10 months and 15 days.

The ordinance, which was approved by a 4-1 vote, will bring the total time of the moratorium to one year, which city officials said will be enough to develop regulations and codes for such stores.

“It takes time for us to determine if we’re going to permit a use, how we’re going to permit it,” said Jim Basham, director of community development, who will be writing the regulations. “Do I need to monitor it? What did I need to do to protect the residents and the business folks that live in the city? When you’re creating a law, you have to make sure you don’t violate people’s rights.”

The biggest concerns expressed by both the council and community members are that the new smoke shops will attract “alternative” people to the area, that the products will be misused for illegal activities and that not enough research is available to create appropriate laws.

“We are not banning e-cigarettes,” Mayor Pro Tem Ellery Deaton said. “We need to take some time to properly assess what is the role of the e-cigarette in our community. I definitely don’t think it should be any more stringent than the role of the cigarette since we are trying to replace the cigarettes with the e-cigarettes.”

This ordinance specifically involves Victoria Towers and Billy DePalma, both Seal Beach residents, who were planning on opening an electronic vapor cigarette shop.

“It should not take and they shouldn’t need a 10.5 month extension,” DePalma said. “That is a long time to put that together. What we felt during the course of the voting process is that there was a lot of joking around and confusion on the procedure going on the with the council members.”

Electronic cigarettes, commonly known as vaporizers, come in many different shapes, sizes and colors. The e-cigarette is powered by a battery, which heats up a coil inside a compartment where flavored liquid or oils are loaded. The heated liquid, now a vapor, is then inhaled through the mouthpiece. Some liquids contain nicotine, but many are flavored with varieties such as peanut butter, bubble gum or gummy bear.

DePalma said the council members were “lackadaisical” and “haphazardly” handled the issue.

During the meeting, Mayor Gary Miller told council members to “push the right button” and then asked if he was allowed to encourage the council members to vote a certain way. Council members joked and laughed throughout the voting process.

Various community members are also displeased with the ordinance, including a Long Beach couple that went to the council meeting to voice their concerns, citing the city’s concerns with dual usage of vaporizers and electronic cigarettes.

“Why should we be so concerned with dual use?” said Danielle Casey, who attended the meeting with her husband. “You can use cigarette papers and soda cans to smoke too and no one is banning that.”

Casey was a cigarette smoker for 25 years but stopped when she began to use a vaporizer and has now been smoke-free for two and a half years. She said that many ex-smokers have now turned their lives around by using e-cigarettes and vaporizers.

“By implementing this moratorium, and possibly a long-term ban, you’re saying that smoking is acceptable, in approved areas of course,’ she said at the council meeting. “But e-cigs, reduced harm e-cigs, are not.”

The ordinance allows stores that are not designated as smoke shops, such as 7-11 and small snack stores, to sell electronic cigarettes and vaporizers. But Father Jack Kearney, a professor of addiction studies at Cypress College and Loyola Marymount, said the professionalism, expertise, flavors and nicotine level variations that would be provided at an e-cigarette store are not provided at convenience stores because they sell “inferior products” and lack guidance and education, unlike the proposed store by DePalma and Towers.

“The only argument I heard last night against vape stores was not based on facts or science, just on pure speculation,” Kearney said.

“(The council) had no good reason to put this moratorium in. There was no scientific reason and no evidence. There is more than enough science and research to show that these stores have a positive impact on public health.”

Basham said he hopes to bring the ordinance back to the council before the 10 months and 15 days are up.

“I’m hoping within three or four months,” he said.