Should a non-issue become a local ordinance?
After the brouhaha in Kennesaw over how many cars you’re permitted to park in your own driveway, even temporarily, Roswell’s proposed public park ban on electronic cigarettes and vapor pens may be a toss-up.
Is vaping actually a problem in our parks? Or is this an attempt to “get ahead of the curve,” as Mayor Jere Wood described it?
In the interest of journalistic integrity, I devoted the better part of a recent, and especially lovely, Saturday afternoon to see if Roswell Area Park was over run with e-cigarette smokers.
When my sons were younger, feeding geese and ducks at the pond was a fun and frequent way to spend a day. That was years ago, and this park has apparently grown and changed as much as they have.
A youth baseball game wrapped up with no billowing vapors from the bleachers or benches. The playgrounds were active with children playing, their parents nearby. But the only thing in anyone’s hands were a scourge of smart phones. No youngsters on bench swings or picnic tables were shrouded in anything smoke-like. There were no plumes along the pedestrian paths, and no steam in the stands at the 5th grade football game.
Lacrosse mom Bobbie Quandt, an 18-year Roswell resident, was watching her son and the football game. She told me she’d never seen anyone vaping in the park. Later, two young men, Taylor O’Neill and Drayton Robertson, biking beside a tree-lined path, shared the same observation.
I have only witnessed anyone vaping twice in my life. The first time was New Year’s Day 2013 at the King Cole Bar in New York City when a friend of a friend was trying to quit smoking. The second was recently in Marietta where a well-dressed man walking along Johnson Ferry Road puffed out a cloud of fog that then dissipated. Poof!
It took me several attempts over years to finally and forever kick my cigarette addiction. E-cigarettes and vapor pens have been cited as a way to help quit. It’s hard not to be supportive of a less harmful alternative that may lead to complete cessation of a dangerous habit.
However, “it sets a bad example,” Wood told me, because it looks like cigarette smoking and confuses citizens and law enforcement.
Morgan Rodgers, director of Recreation and Parks, told me that it is, “mostly a perception issue,” parents are concerned that vaping gives the appearance of smoking, sending mixed signals to their impressionable children.
Last month was the first vote on the proposed ordinance to ban the use of e-cigarettes and vapor pens in city parks, and Roswell City Council member Becky Wynn was the sole opposing vote.
The second vote, determining passage, is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday Roswell City Hall, Council Chambers.
