Surrey council wages war on vaping<\/p>\n
Published 6:15 am Tuesday, February 24, 2026<\/p>\n
Surrey council has backed Councillor Gordon Hepner\u2019s call to wage war on vaping in this city.<\/p>\n
Hepner presented a notice of motion on February 9 aimed at strengthening controls on the sale of vaping products in Surrey, arguing that vaping has become a \u201cserious health concern\u201d in Surrey, especially among the younger set.<\/p>\n
Council eagerly approved his motion on February 23.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see it around the schools, I see it frankly everywhere where the youth are vaping products that contain nicotine, and nicotine addiction that can quickly develop into more poor habits for teenagers that\u2019s particularly troubling because the brain continues to develop into adulthood, up to 25 years old, and youth can become dependent at lower levels of exposure than adults,\u201d Hepner told council.<\/p>\n
\u201cPractical impacts are real. Concentrating, learning, mood, stress, regulation challenges,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s quite disturbing.\u201d He said with vaping comes \u201cacute risks\u201d of developing serious lung diseases. \u201cThis motion directs staff to bring back the most restrictive legal supportable package from the City\u2019s 2019 bylaw work to material reduce where and how these products can be sold in Surrey with strong limits, licensing controls and enforcement,\u201d Hepner said.<\/p>\n
His motion calls on city staff to return to council with a report containing draft bylaw amendments for council\u2019s consideration \u201cincluding a new business licence for vapour-related product retailers requiring specific licence to sell, offer for sale, provide and distribute these products in Surrey\u201d and \u201cmajor retail availability reduction measures such a restricting vapour products sales to 19-plus parties and of course prohibiting vapour product sales in general-access retail sales like convenience stores or gas stations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moreover, Hepner called for a city-wide \u201ccap\u201d removing it from \u201cyouth-sensitive things like schools, parks, recreation centres and what-not\u201d with \u201cclear consequences for violations. \u201cIf staff could do that, that would be fantastic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Councillor Mike Bose cited a news report indicating that of 560 vaping stores sampled across Canada 48 per cent were operating outside of federal legislation.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo this is needed to ensure the safety of our young people,\u201d he said in support of Hepner\u2019s motion.<\/p>\n
Councillor Harry Bains noted that according to Fraser Health\u2019s website risks associated with vaping include delayed brain development, memory\/mood\/concentration and impulse control and also depression, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder and behavioural problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a gateway into other substances,\u201d Bains said. \u201cThese are the types of things we need to keep out of the hands of children in our community \u2013 I know it\u2019s an epidemic in our schools, I hear about it all the time, high schools even elementary schools kids are vaping.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councillor Doug Elford said he knows someone whose grandchild perished from vaping. \u201cIt is something that I feel strongly about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mayor Brenda Locke said people marketing vaping products to young people, even children, \u201care out there with special little gadgets that look cool, that look like they\u2019re high-tech, and the flavours are made to attract children.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis really does have to be addressed,\u201d Locke said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surrey council wages war on vaping Published 6:15 am Tuesday, February 24, 2026 Surrey council has backed Councillor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-496572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}