Melbourne City Council: Make Vaping Same as Smoking

Vaping is on the verge of being banned in Melbourne’s CBD as the council votes on whether to redefine e-cigarettes as ‘smoking’, angering civil libertarians. The City of Melbourne Council will decide on Tuesday whether to ban vaping from all of council’s existing smoke-free zones, according to an article in the Daily Mail.

Melbourne city centre (also known colloquially as simply “The City” or “The CBD” is the central built up area of the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, centred on the Hoddle Grid, the oldest part of the city laid out in 1837, and includes its fringes. It is not to be confused with the larger local government area of the City of Melbourne which includes this area and the inner suburbs around it, according to wikipedia.

A total of 11 smoke-free zones in the CBD and surrounds including the Bourke Street Mall would be covered by the ban. The popular Tan running track which loops around Kings Domain and the Royal Botanical Gardens, south-east of the CBD, would be off-limits to vapers if the motion passes the council vote.