Milwaukee Vape Shop Owners Ask For Store Vaping Permits

As of yesterday at midnight, vaping has been banned in the same places where smoking is forbidden, in the largest city within the state of Wisconsin. The ban was unanimously passed by the Milwaukee’s common council, and Mayor Tom Barrett signed the ordinance on the 8th of June and set it to go into effect 30 days later.

Sadly, the new Milwaukee vaping ban, will also apply to the the use of e-cigarettes in vape shops, hence disallowing vapers to test products before purchasing them. Any violators will face fines starting from $100. Wisco Vapes manager Jody Courchaine thinks that this measure will hurt vaping businesses. “Nobody wants to come in here and take a wild guess at a flavor,” he said.

Consumers should be allowed to try products before purchasing them

Other vape shop owners concur. “There should be some sort of permitting that we should be able to apply for. If you can have a cigar bar or a hookah bar we should be allowed to vape in our vape stores” says Matthew Murphy, owner of Lakeview Vapor. Murphy added that most customers sample flavors in their devices before purchasing them.

Vaper Todd Hagenkord says that this is how he normally tries new flavours. “It’s nice that you can taste it because you drop X amount of dollars on a bottle of juice and you go home to taste it and once you crack that seal and it tastes terrible — guess what you’re out the money,” said Hagenkord.

Why flavours are important

In the meantime, in line with previous research, a recent large scale peer reviewed study published in the Harm Reduction Journal, seems to confirm that the availability of e-liquid flavours may encourage smokers to switch to the proven safer alternatives that could save their life.

The researchers looked at the first e-liquid flavours and current ones vaped by the participants, and interestingly, the results indicated that the majority of regular e-cigarette users, had transitioned directly from smoking cigarettes to vaping with non-tobacco flavours, and to switching from tobacco to non-tobacco flavours over time.

Vapers should not be discouraged from trying flavours

“The results show that non-tobacco flavours, especially fruit based flavours, are being increasingly preferred to tobacco flavours by adult vapers who have completely switched from combustible cigarettes to vapour products,” said Dr Christopher Russell, Deputy Director of CSUR, who led the research.

With this data in mind, how wise is it to set in place regulations that would come in the way of e-cigarette users trying new flavours, from a Public Health perspective?

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