Smoking in public places and the proliferation of vape shops were on the minds of members of the Edgewood City Council this week.
The discussions were continuations of conversations the council had undertaken earlier in the year, and even though no official action on the topic itself occurred at the meeting, the discussion offered insight into the city’s possible future direction.
“We’re just asking again for your consideration to think about a more comprehensive smoke-free policy for the city of Edgewood,” said Susan McDonald, a healthcare professional and representative of the Edgewood branch of Live Well NKY, an initiative through the Northern Kentucky Health Department.
Several cities in the region, including Bellevue, Dayton, Highland Heights and Ludlow, have already instituted smoke-free policies, and McDonald had first pitched the idea to the council in February, according to city meeting minutes.
McDonald spoke about the health dangers of smoking and argued that cities with smoke-free policies had better health outcomes for their residents. She also spoke about the peculiarities of electronic tobacco products, like vaping pens, and advocated for the city to curtail their spread.
“I know we can’t control and limit where businesses can go, but we have a lot of concern that there’s parcels open, particularly up near the new Kroger and off of Barnwood Drive, that could easily turn into vape shops,” McDonald said. “And so, whatever the council can do to limit that, that would be very beneficial as well to our community.”
The council had also engaged in discussion on smoking regulations in May, according to city meeting minutes, and the council voted to install “no smoking” signs throughout the city’s parks.
In terms of enforcement, this presented a quandary, as the city or police could not fine or cite someone for smoking in the parks in the absence of an ordinance, but City Attorney Frank Wichmann argued that, because they are city property, they were free to set the internal rules.
“Even though we may not have an ordinance that says you can’t park there, it’s on our property, and we can enforce that,” said City Administrator Brian Dehner.
In practice, this would mean that people could be instructed to leave the parks if they were caught smoking there.
Kenton County already has a countywide ordinance limiting smoking in public buildings owned by the county, but the ordinance does not extend to parks. The ordinance also allows the posting of signage curtailing smoking in public buildings.
Additionally, the council banned all legal cannabis businesses from the city in August of last year.
Edgewood, like other cities in the region, is currently in the process of revising its zoning ordinance to bring it more in line with county comprehensive planning. The county refers to this process as the Z21 Project.
Dehner said that once the city approves its new Z21-based ordinance, the only zone in the city where one could set up a vape shop or other tobacco-specialty stores would be the highway commercial zone “at the bottom of the hill on Sperti Drive” near the McDonald’s and Thortons.
Gas stations and supermarkets will still be able to sell tobacco products outside of the highway commercial zone. Kenton County Planning and Development Services will give a presentation to the council on the Z21 Project on Sept. 22, and the council will vote to enact or reject the ordinance in subsequent weeks.
Dehner said the City had completed designing the ‘no-smoking’ signs, had already received quotes for the smaller versions of the signs and was waiting to hear back about quotes for the larger signs.
There was no indication from the council members if a possible smoke-free ordinance was coming down the pike in the future.
