METROPOLIS, IL— House Bill 1540 passed last March in Illinois but officially went into effect across the state on January 1, 2024. The law prohibits smoking vapes or e-cigarettes inside public places including restaurants, stores, and schools. Also when smoking outside you must be at least 15 feet from the building’s entrance.

Now, electronic smoking devices are on the list of items prohibited under the Smoke Free Illinois Act, along with combustible tobacco, such as cigarettes and cigars.

Skylar Klanchar has been vaping since she was 18. "With cigarettes I understood, there’s a smell there’s secondhand smoke," she said.

She thinks the new law is a bit pointless. "All you’re gonna do is encourage them to be vaping anyways, and just more secretively…People were told they couldn’t drink alcohol and they made speakeasies. They’re gonna find a way to smoke a vape," said Klanchar.

Dylan Duckett owns all three locations of the vape shop Cloud 9 one of which is in Metropolis. He says he’s not worried about the new law.

"Honestly, most of my customers have pretty well already, you know, they don’t vape inside most places. A lot of them have it’s kind of like an unwritten rule, just common courtesy . So most of them and a lot of them have even thought that it was against the rules already," he said.

Going forward Klanchar hopes lawmakers get a variety of opinions when making decisions like this.

"Getting a better understanding of the people who are actually vaping versus the people who are just wanting the vaping gone. Because that’s what it’s beginning to sound like, they’re listening to the people who don’t vape versus the people who are vaping to help themselves," said Klanchar.