LYNDONVILLE - Electronic Cigarettes are on their way to the Northeast Kingdom. Dennis Steele will be the proud owner of NEK Cigarettes within the next couple of weeks.
Steele is set to open his store on Broad Street in Lyndonville where the old New England Video used to be located.
E-Cigarettes are a battery-operated device that heats a liquid solution, which is ninety-nine percent water and one percent nicotine to produce a vapor for inhalation. When inhaling e-cigarettes, users are not inhaling smoke, but rather that liquid solution, which once heated up, turns into a vapor.
Even though you are technically not smoking or purchasing tobacco, you still need to be eighteen to buy an e-cigarette. In 2011, the American Association of Public Health Physicians suggested that those "who are unwilling to quit tobacco smoking or unable to quit with medical advice and pharmaceutical methods should consider other nicotine containing products such as electronic cigarettes."
NEK Vapor owner Dennis Steele still needs approval from the Lyndon Town Selectboard, as well as an approved tobacco license from the state.
As to why Dennis Steele is opening a electronic cigarette store in the heart of the NEK, "I had been battling cigarettes for about ten years, and then I tried it [an E-Cigarette] and I never touched it again so I was like wow this is really cool, seems like a business opportunity, there's nothing around the area. I'll give it a try."
According to Vaporsearchusa.com there are currently only three other electronic cigarette stores in the state of Vermont, with the largest one being Vermont Vapors, located in Castleton.