Is vaping smoking?

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Hundreds of protesters stood in a cloud in front of Queen’s Park today, but it was a sweet-smelling cloud of vapor, not smoke. They say upcoming changes to the rules for e-cigarettes will force vapor sellers out of business, kill jobs and drive people back to smoking traditional cigarettes.

These changes go into effect at the beginning of January, but until last week the vape shops thought they would be exempt from some of the rules.

They put e cigarettes on par with regular cigarettes meaning they can’t be on display or used in the stores or vape shops where they’re sold. The owners of those shops and their supporters were the ones at Queen’s Park today and they say e-cigarettes are not cigarettes, they shouldn’t be treated the same.

The cloud was thick above Queen’s Park, and it smelled like candy.

The vapor advocates say they’re not looking for the right to smoke in parks and restaurants. They’re concerned about being able to continue to introduce vaping to smokers.

“As the regulations are written now with Bill 45, you can’t even have a device turned on in the shop. You can’t even hold it in your hand switched on. So to show someone how to use it, and the safety features, it’s impossible to do that.” said Charlie Pisano

“There’s no carcinogens, there’s no tar. It’s essentially benign to your lungs and the rest of your body.”

“If you look around, these are all ex-smokers and if we don’t get these regulations amended, a lot of the folks behind me are going to start smoking cigarettes again.” said Matt Ramage from the Vapor Bar.

Matt and Coco Ramage brought a busload of supporters from their store, The Vapor Bar, in Dundas.

“They’re afraid of losing that. That they’re not going to be able to stay off cigarettes if they don’t have their vape shop to support them.”

They say they just want a rule exemption for stores like theirs

“We’d have to cover up all our products and stop talking to our customers. It’s basically a gag order.”

They say they can’t operate that way.

“My company alone, we’re the primary source of income for at least 18 families.” said Pisano.