EAST PEORIA — The city council in East Peoria has expanded its 5-month-old ban on electronic cigarettes on city-owned property to include all public spaces where smoking tobacco products is currently prohibited.

East Peoria becomes the 15th community in Illinois, and the only one downstate, to approve an ordinance more restrictive than state law.

The ordinance prohibits use of an electronic smoking device while in a public place, within 15 feet of any entrance to a public place, or in any enclosed indoor area used by the public. That includes public places and workplaces, offices, theaters, museums, libraries, educational institutions, schools, commercial establishments, enclosed shopping centers and retail stores, restaurants, bars, private clubs, gaming facilities and, presumably, vape stores where e-cigarettes are sold. The ordinance includes no mention of an exemption for vape stores.

"This has been a matter of much discussion for quite some time" said John Kahl, the council's commissioner of public health and safety, before Tuesday evening's council meeting. "With complaints about electronic smoking devices in public places on the rise and the negative effects coming to light through extensive research, we feel compelled to act at this time."

The council approved the ban by a vote of 4-1. Commissioner Tim Jeffers voted "no."

As defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, electronic cigarettes, also known as e-cigarettes, are "battery-operated products designed to deliver nicotine, flavor and other chemicals. They turn chemicals, including highly addictive nicotine, into an aerosol that is inhaled by the user. The practice has come to be known as "vaping," a derivative of the word "vapor." The council in February banned the use of e-cigarettes on city-owned property.

The FDA is preparing to regulate the sale, marketing and manufacturing of electronic smoking devices next month, Kahl said, noting that there is emerging evidence that the second-hand vapors exhaled by the smoker are hazardous to the health of others.

"Since these came to market in 2008, they have been marketed as a better alternative to traditional cigarettes by the manufacturers. As a new product, there was no data regarding the health effects of these devices, Kahl said Tuesday. "More than 500 brands, 7,000 flavors and many years later, the research clearly suggests that when the vaporized liquid, which includes propylene glycol, glycerol, nicotine and flavor substances, breaks down after the heating process, it produces both formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, and formaldehyde-releasing agents. It is clear to me that any decision to restrict a product in a very popular, $2.9 billion industry should never be taken lightly."

Kahl said it was a difficult decision, but in the end it was his moral obligation to vote to approve the ban.

"Anyone who knows me personally knows that I am not a fan of big government," he said. "My decision to support this ordinance is not a matter of a belief in allowing the government to restrict anyone's right to smoke electronic devices, but is what I feel is a moral obligation as commissioner of public health and safety to protect the rights of all in public places, to include a right from being adversely affected by the toxic emissions of electronic smoking devices."

City attorney Scott Brunton said before Tuesday's meeting that state law allows communities to draft laws that are different than state law under certain conditions.

"The Smoke Free Illinois Act (which took effect Jan. 1, 2008) permits non-home-rule municipalities to regulate smoking in public places in a more restrictive manner than that provided by the act," said Brunton. "Further, the city has the general authority to declare and regulate a public nuisance. This ordinance declares the use of the electronic smoking devices in public places to be a public nuisance."

Mayor Dave Mingus said the more restrictive ban on e-cigarettes came at the request of merchants and city residents.

"Merchants and businesses asked us to do this so they would have something to tell their patrons," Mingus said. "And residents find it objectionable to have vapor coming in their direction (in public places). But we're not going to have some special SWAT team to catch vapers."

East Peoria joins just a handful of communities in Illinois that have banned e-cigarettes in public places. Communities with a similar ban are Arlington Heights, Chicago, Deerfield, DeKalb, Elgin, Elk Grove Village, Evanston, Naperville, New Lenox, Oak Park, Schaumburg, Skokie, Wheaton, Willmette, as well as Ogle County, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The ban would take effect 10 days after it's approved at a second reading at the council's Aug. 2 meeting.