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<br />Orange Co. health officials want to ban e-cigarettes in <br />restaurants, bars <br />By WNCN Staff Published: February 23, 2016, 11:51 am Updated: February 23, 2016, 7:30 pm <br /> <br /> AP Photo/Frank Franklin II <br /> <br />HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. (WNCN) – Orange County Health officials are looking to ban <br />electronic cigarettes at restaurants and bars. <br />County health officials are citing new research for the change. Emerging research suggests <br />people who breathe in second-hand vapor from e-cigarettes could face potential health risks, <br />according to the Orange County Health Department. <br />“Some of those chemicals have been tested and are known irritants and some of them are known <br />to cause disease,” said Coby Jansen Austin, the Tobacco Prevention and Control Director for the <br />Orange County Health Department. “The board feels that given the current science, this is an <br />important move for them to take to help protect the health of people here in Orange County.” <br />Orange County Health officials said they would enforce the ban like the current smoking ban. <br />Marc Sylvestre, vice president of The Vapor Girl in Chapel Hill, believes the ban is premature <br />and calls it a “slap in the face for people who vape.” <br />“Right now the FDA is doing numerous studies on the effects of FDA vapor and they have not <br />yet found any dangerous evidence or harm from second hand vapor,” said Sylvestre. “I think it <br />will hurt business in Orange County because a lot of people are going to go to bars and <br />restaurants in Durham County or Alamance County where you’re allowed to vape.”