Franklin Co Developing Vaping Ordinance to Curb Practice at High School

Franklin County is working on instituting a vaping ordinance aimed at curbing the practice in schools.

At their work session Tuesday evening, Commission Chair Jason Macomson said the Board was approached by the School System to develop the ordinance.

“We were recently contacted by school officials about the problem of vaping by students at the high school,” he began. “And in consultation with those officials, our Magistrate and our attorney, State law allows the Board of Commissioners to pass a local ordinance, which would allow the school resource officer discretion to issue warnings before they charge students under the local ordinance or state law as well providing several different options for punishments. And this ordinance would update our current ordinance. If I’m correct we really don’t have anything about vaping because that wasn’t a thing when that was written. So, this new ordinance would conform to state law and at the same time give school officials more flexibility when dealing with what has become a serious issue.”

Commissioner Eddie Wester said he liked the idea of the ordinance but it should be used as a way to educate young people on the dangers of vaping.

“I think it’s a really good idea,” he said. “Yes, vaping has become an issue but I think it’s tough to go arrest a kid for vaping and run the possibility of ruining that kid’s life and his future because of an arrest. When you give the leeway to give a warning or issue a citation for them to have to go in front of the Magistrate Judge, I think that works a whole lot better. And it gives them (school officials) something that they can help to hopefully control the vaping that’s going on,” Wester explained.

Commissioners Ryan Swails, Kyle Foster, and Robert Franklin agreed and the discussion turned to how to make the ordinance effective for students without having to arrest them.

County Magistrate Judge Cody Grizzle suggested community service or attending classes on the dangers of vaping.

“The only thing I’d like to do is I’d like to have the same maximum with a first offense being just community service work,” he told the Board. “So what would happen in the process would be, when we say community service work, they would go to a class first. A school resource officer or any officer would be able to write them a citation. What we would be offering would be like a diversion program.”

Grizzle said the problem is coming up with penalties if the student refuses to go to the diversion class.

After more discussion, Commissioners sent the draft of the vaping ordinance back to County Attorney Bubba Samuels for updates to include warnings and citations as well as penalties rather than just an arrest.

Commissioners plan to have their first reading of the vaping ordinance at their regular meeting in February and vote to pass it at their March meeting.