News and Events

Dixie County Library System Shares Policy on E-Cigarette Use With the Three Rivers Regional Library System
November 1 , 2014

Cindy Ballot, Director of the Dixie County Library System, has been very supportive of the Dixie County SWAT youth and a partner of the Tobacco Free Partnership for over 5 years.  Recently she received an e-mail from the Three Rivers Regional Library System (TRRLS) director about the dangers of e-cigarettes and asked her opinions of the TRRLS Board addressing the issue of using e-cigarettes in libraries in their policies. 

Mrs. Ballot was so proud to be able to share with the TTRLS Board about the Electronic cigarette and liquid nicotine ordinance Dixie County passed last year.  She also shared with the TTRLS Board a link to the Tobacco Free Partnership website to read a previous article about a Dixie County Commissioner who had attended a presentation on electronic cigarettes and decided to address the Board of County Commissioners in order to adopt an ordinance that would require an age restriction,  addresses product placement,  and would restrict the use of e-cigarettes to meet the Clean Indoor Air Act.  The ordinance was passed without objection. 

Due to the fast acting County Commissioners, the Dixie County Library system does not have to deal with the issue of including e-cigarettes into their library policies before telling library users that it is not permitted.  Libraries all over the country have banned electronic cigarettes and smokeless tobacco use for many reasons such as “difficulty in monitoring the use of e-cigarettes, coupled with potential confusion from customers who don’t discern the difference between tobacco cigarettes and their electronic counterparts ‘at a glance’.” Other libraries want to wait for more studies to determine safety to users and others. 

Vaping

Librarians have said more and more people have been using the electronic cigarettes in the buildings have led to concern about the damage the smoke could cause to both books and electronics inside the library. “We don’t know how the vapors would settle, whether they would cause the yellowing like cigarette smoke would,” a Librarian explained. “Books are very porous; the pages are too. They can take in any scent and so really we wanted to go ahead and ban the products before they started to do any sort of damage.”

Mrs. Ballot requested signage for the library in Cross City that could be posted near the entrance of the library.  The Tobacco Free Partnership of Dixie County voted to purchase the signage for the Dixie County Library in Cross City, Florida. 

The partnership was happy to assist the Dixie County Library and Mrs. Ballot in keeping the residents of Dixie County Tobacco and Nicotine Free. For more information, contact Melanie Anderson, Dixie County Tobacco Prevention Specialist, at manderson@quitdoc.com.