MANKATO, Minn.- As the E-cigarette business continues to boom, you might see more and more people inhale the product's "vapor" indoors, but that's not the case for one Minnesota city and some other places around the Twin Cities.
It may be relatively odorless and considered just a water vapor mist, but the smoke-like appearance of an E-cig causes enough people to question if it's legal to puff indoors.
"When you see people doing it right away, the first reaction is just to tell them no smoking obviously," said Blue Bricks Bar and Restaurant's Ray Betts. "And then they go through the whole 'shpeel' of how it's not harmful.
Betts has heard plenty of 'spiel' and in Mankato, city councilors took up the issue and quickly decided to ban E-cigs at bars and restaurants in the city.
The ban came with relative ease because of the city's pre-existing law which states no smoking indoors period, not even so much as a hookah lounge can be found in Mankato.
While Mankato is one of the first city's, there are plenty of other places the E-cigs are banned.
A month ago, Metro Transit took a similar step and anywhere there's a smoking ban, there's an E-cig ban.
The Minnesota Twins banned smoking from the plaza at Target Field last year and e-cigs are banned as well.
The same goes for Hennepin County property, where smoking is not allowed, neither is the E-cig mist.
"Now the ban, just clears up all of the questions about it so it's kind of nice," said Betts.
The way Mankato figures it, each city will have to look at its own ordinance to figure out what to do, that is, unless like the smoking ban, the state steps in.
