Vapour trail: E-cigarette craze hits Wheat City

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This article was published 29/09/2014 (4248 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon businesses have a case of the vapours.

Two new businesses dealing exclusively with smokeless e-cigarettes are opening their doors in the city while a third existing store has just started offering the battery-powered devices that simulate smoking cigarettes, but produce only vapour.

They remain in a legal grey area, but the popularity of “vaping” in Manitoba as a way to quit smoking is crystal clear. Winnipeg-based Fat Panda Electronic Cigarettes and Accessories opened up last week in Brandon — the store’s fourth location to open in the province in less than a year.

“There are just so many smokers. Every city, every town could certainly use them,” said David Flintoft, the store’s operations manager. He claims the store’s Winnipeg locations have thousands of regular clients.

“There’s always more and more people coming.”

A little more than 19 per cent of the population over 12 years old in the Prairie Mountain Health region are dedicated or occasional smokers, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

Stores can’t legally market the products as a smoking cessation so, Fat Panda, the city’s first vape shop, is forced to get a little creative with its signage.

“Kick it!” is emblazoned on the front of the store and its pamphlets, which managers say refers to the laid-back, café-style atmosphere of the business at 601 18th St. Inside looks more like a cellphone store with its clean white walls, couches, flat-screen televisions and bar stools.

Along with a range of different pen-shaped devices, the store’s walls are lined with dozens of flavours of “e-liquid” refills — ranging from mom’s apple pie to honeydew — with different nicotine levels ranging from zero to 24 mg.

“The proof is in the pudding in my opinion,” Flintoft said, claiming he has cut his pack-per-day habit in half since he started vaping.

General manager Wayne Basaraba was also singing its praises, claiming he stopped smoking entirely four months ago after going through two packs a day.

“For me, it has worked,” he said as the fruity-smelling vapour poured from his nose and mouth.

Another store solely dedicated to all things vaping — where a long-forgotten smoke shop used to be — will open its doors at 1037 Rosser Ave. on Saturday.

Hugh Harcus, owner of the soon-to-be-opened Wheat City Vape Shop, said he, too, will sell “high-end” e-juices and hardware with his sights set on helping people quit smoking.

“It’s a really reasonable way to get all those chemicals out of your body,” he said. “They work.”

E-cigarettes have fostered a massive vaping subculture of hobbyists who show off their vaping skills at international conferences and on videos online.

Those of the vaping community modify their devices to blow massive amounts of the vapour — without nicotine — to perform tricks, which could point to the explosion of e-cigarette popularity that has wafted into Brandon.

“I was just in L.A. and it was insane where the industry is going and how many dollars are involved,” Harcus said. “It’s pretty wild, it’s an exciting industry.”

The legality of the product is still as murky as the vapour coming out of the battery-powered high-tech cigs.

Aside from barring shops from claiming their perceived health benefits, Health Canada has stated publicly e-cigarette products — including e-liquids — that contain any amount of nicotine fall within the scope of the Food and Drugs Act and need approval by Health Canada before they can be imported, advertised or sold in the country and none have received such approval.

Bob Ritchot, co-owner of B.O.B. Headquarters, says the rules are complex, but insists he’s on the right side of the law since he began selling e-cigarettes three weeks ago.

“There are ways to sell e-liquid with nicotine legally,” he said. “You can’t sell them packaged with an e-cigarette. You can’t sell the device with liquid (containing nicotine) in it.”

The disposable e-cigarettes found at gas stations, for instance, don’t contain nicotine, Ritchot said. All three vendors the Sun spoke to were all sure to mention the reputation of their supplying vendors and quality of the lab-tested products they’re selling.

“We wanted to make sure we were doing it responsibly and within the guidelines of the laws that exist today,” Ritchot said. “It’s extremely confusing, even getting a straight answer from Health Canada — that doesn’t exist.”

With help from legal counsel, Ritchot said he has set up strict rules for his store to sell the products. They are similar to the government-imposed rules on normal cigarettes — including not displaying e-juice containing nicotine.

“It’s about community. You try and be respected by your community,” he said.

While e-cigarettes were “galloping through the U.S. for the last four years,” Ritchot said Health Canada has had plenty of time to regulate — and enforce — the industry.

Some Canadian stores selling e-cigarettes have received cease and desist letters from Health Canada and Canada Border Services Agency often seizes product coming from the U.S.

Distributors, such as Ontario-based New Life E-Cigs, make stores sign a code of conduct document and state that they will deal with Health Canada directly if the signing retailer receives a cease and desist letter.

Some in the industry in Canada don’t want federal regulations imposed, but Brandon’s businesses welcome it — and expect it shortly.

“Right now, legally, I can sell it to a two-year-old,” Flintoft said, but just like buying a pack of smokes at 7-Eleven, the stores will ID anyone who looks younger than 25 and won’t sell to anyone under 18.

Canadian municipalities such as Toronto and Vancouver, where vaping has become commonplace, are flirting with imposing public bans on vaping to fall closer in line with those on smoking.

Flintoft and Basaraba both said several restaurants in Brandon have allowed them to vape inside and their aim is to cut through the cloud of stigma of e-cigarettes and help distance them from regular darts.

» gbruce@brandonsun.com

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