A “no smoking” sign is posted outside of Rubey Park in Aspen. The city of Aspen wants to update its clean air act to reflect the state’s clean air act restrictions.
The Aspen City Council will update its smoking ordinance to include electronic cigarettes, banning their use in areas where cigarettes are already not allowed.
The council signaled support to update the city’s clean air act, which dictates where public smoking is prohibited. The city council approved updating the ordinance during a first reading Tuesday, updating municipal code to align with the state’s Clean Air Act, which was updated in 2019 to include e-cigarettes and vapes.
“Our existing ordinance doesn’t address vaping at all,” said Aspen Environmental Health Administrator Natalie Tsevdos.
E-cigarettes and vapes will be prohibited in indoor public spaces and on city-owned property, including the city and county’s campuses and on the bridge between the Aspen School District campus and the Aspen Recreation Center. Additional updates to the smoking ordinance will prohibit smoking and e-cigarette use from outdoor public places that are being used for a public event, like the Saturday farmer’s market.
City staff began updating its clean air act in 2019, but the project was delayed due to the pandemic and staff departures. The city revisited changes to the act after recent questions about the rules of smoking and vaping in Aspen.
Changes to the state law in 2019 also removed exemptions for hotels and small businesses, except for businesses whose primary sales were from tobacco products. Since Eric’s Bar closed in 2022, there are no longer any cigar bars or other establishments in the city that meet the exemption.
“(The state act) allows local jurisdictions to be more strict and to regulate outdoor spaces, so that’s something that the city historically has done,” Tsevdos said. “This update would also remove some antiquated regulations that are no longer enforceable. We can’t be less strict than the state, so we can’t enforce anything that’s less strict than that.”
The city’s pedestrian malls are not smoke-free, but smoking is prohibited within 25 feet of the main public entrance of a building where smoking is prohibited.
Aspen first passed a smoking ordinance in 1985, one of the first municipalities in Colorado to do so. The city council updated the ordinance in 2010 to prohibit smoking outside on city-owned properties.
The city has not updated the smoking ordinance since the proliferation of battery-powered, cartridge-based smoking devices. In 2019, Aspen banned all flavored tobacco products, partially in an attempt to mitigate the increase in use of e-cigarettes and tobacco among Aspen youth.
According to results from the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, a statewide survey conducted among middle and high schools every two years to measure overall student wellness, 17% of Aspen School District students reported vaping in 2023. About 30% of ASD students reported vaping in 2021.
“I think the health implications have become very severe,” said Mayor Rachel Richards of e-cigarette and vape use.
The city council will have to approve the changes to the ordinance on a second reading at a future meeting before they go into effect.
