Watsonville city leaders ban e-cigarettes in public places

An e-cigarette is a battery-powered vaporizer, which for some gives the same high as tobacco – but produces a mist rather than actual cigarette smoke.

But for some community leaders in Watsonville said that doesn’t matter. They say e-cigarettes still pose the same health dangers.

“It still contains as many chemicals as regular cigarettes- it’s still tobacco,” said Jenny T. Sarmiento with the nonprofit organization Pajaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance.

Sarmiento’s main job is to focus on local kids and their health – whether it be food, their physical safety, or in this case – what they breath.

She brought the idea of creating rules and regulations for e-cigarettes to the city, and it’s not just secondhand smoke Sarmiento is trying to prevent kids from.

“The tobacco industry is promoting e-cigarettes to young people because that’s the next population they want to start picking up that habit,” said Sarmiento.

On Tuesday Watsonville city leaders voted unanimously to ban the use of e-cigarettes in public spaces, though they are still allowed to be sold in stores.

“You could technically go into the library and the city offices without any guidelines in place to utilize electronic cigarettes,” said Watsonville City Council member Daniel Dodge.

Now e-cigarettes, just like tobacco, aren’t allowed inside city hall, the public library, or public schools.

“We wanted the e-cigarettes to be able to fall under the same guidelines that we have established for tobacco use in our community,” said Dodge.

Watsonville is the third city on the Central Coast to crack down on e-cigarettes and the third in Santa Cruz County. Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley already have similar laws in place.