Battle over whether SC vape shops are ‘essential’ roils Columbia

Columbia police and Mayor Steve Benjamin thought they should close the city’s vape shops, which sell electronic cigarettes, during the coronavirus epidemic.

After all, stopping the deadly, highly contagious coronavirus depends on people staying at home except for vital tasks, and S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster had ordered non-essential businesses closed, Benjamin said in an interview Friday.

But one vape shop, Beyond Vapes on Sparkleberry Lane, got a ruling from the S.C. Department of Commerce that it and the city’s other vape shops could stay open.

Now, the city police department — which had earlier closed four vape stores including Beyond Vapes — will no longer close vape shops.

“What would be essential about a vape shop?” mused Columbia police chief Skip Holbrook on Friday. However, if the governor says vape shops are essential, his officers will no longer try to shut them down, the chief said.

“This is intellectually dishonest and laughable,” said Benjamin, stressing that on one hand, McMaster says people should stay at home and only go out on essential errands, such as to get food, medicine and see a doctor. But then, Benjamin said, McMaster’s Department of Commerce is allowing vape shops to stay open.

McMaster views “essential” in a different way.

On April 3, when the governor ordered several dozen specific businesses closed, those were nonessential businesses such as barbershops and gyms where people came into close contact with each other. And for weeks, he has repeatedly urged people to stay at home.

McMaster also ordered the S.C. Department of Commerce to make decisions on a case by case basis if businesses were to ask for an exemption. That is what Beyond Vapes did.

It’s important to McMaster that as many South Carolinians as possible stay employed, said the governor’s spokesman Brian Symmes.

“What’s essential about a vape shop is the same thing that’s essential about every single small business in South Carolina that makes up the backbone of South Carolina’s economy,” said Symmes.

The governor has said he will close businesses in a “very methodical way that protects the people of South Carolina,” Symmes said. “But the economic impact of this long term is important and it has to be considered.”

Symmes added, “We have 200,000 people in South Carolina unemployed right now, and Mayor Benjamin seems hell-bent to add to that number.”

Benjamin, recalling how McMaster was going to be in Greenville’s St. Patrick’s Day parade in mid-March amid clear warnings weeks of how dangerous coronavirus, said the governor apparently still doesn’t understand how easily the deadly coronavirus spreads and how important it is for as many people as possible to stay at home.

And, said Benjamin, he doesn’t need lectures from anyone about the economy since businesses are thriving in Columbia and the city has a balanced budget. “But the discussion now is how to fight the greatest pandemic the world has seen in 100 years and how to save lives.”

Earlier Friday, Benjamin said, he had submitted a public records request to the Department of Commerce in an attempt to learn all the various businesses that department is allowing to stay open in the midst of the historic pandemic.

“We have police officers investigating shootings, fire fighters fighting a two-alarm fire — I don’t need my police and firefighters going to a business that the governor has articulated should be closed down and being presented with an email saying, ‘We got a waiver from the governor’s office,’ ” said Benjamin.

Vape shops sell electronic cigarettes, which lack many pollutants that regular cigarettes contain and have large amounts of highly addictive nicotine. Last year, the electronic cigarettes were associated with an outbreak of lung disease that sickened hundreds around the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists smoking, which harms the lungs, as one factor that might weaken people’s immune systems from an attack of the coronavirus, which attacks the respiratory system and the lungs.

At the Beyond Vapes shop Friday afternoon, the store manager said it is doing curbside service only and not letting people come in.

The manager, who gave his name only as Charles, also said his store sells a hemp compound which is supposed to have medicinal attributes to fight conditions such as anxiety and depression. As he spoke, he inhaled and exhaled large lungfuls of scented smoke from an electronic device.

Offering curb service is “exactly what South Carolina businesses should be doing when possible,” Symmes said.

On Friday, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reported that South Carolina confirmed cases of coronavirus now exceed 3,000. And Richland County leads the state with 452 confirmed cases.

Asked to explain the Department of Commerce’s reasoning in granting vape shops permission to stay open during the pandemic, department spokeswoman Alex Clark said in an email, “Vape shops were not specifically called out in any of the four categories outlined in the (governor’s) executive orders.”

This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 6:17 PM.