Dallas, TX
Dallas closer to banning vaping in public spaces
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/dmn/UKFNFXM2DVC4ZMM7RXBYX5RJHA.jpg "Dallas closer to banning vaping in public spaces")
Dallas is weighing recommendations from a citizen-led advisory group to ban vaping in public spaces to protect vulnerable populations from what it considers harmful secondhand exposure.
At a Parks, Trails and the Environment committee meeting this month, Folashade Afolabi, with the Dallas Environmental Commission, said her group recommends the city expand its definition of smoking to include e-cigarettes, cigars and vapes that create an aerosol or vapor.
The policy change would bring the city up to a “gold standard” of public health, Afolabi said, adding that the change is recommended by the American Lung Association, American Heart Association and World Health Organization.
“Unfortunately, you’ll see some of the data shows that there are many children that are teenagers who are dual smoking,” Afolabi said. “So they came into the tobacco world and the cigarette world from e-cigarettes and now have ventured over to combustible cigarettes.”
City staff are still working on making amendments to the parts of the code prohibiting smoking and have a goal to present it to City Council in the next two or three months, said Carlos Evans, director of Dallas’ Office of Environmental Quality and Sustainability.
But the Parks, Trails and Environment committee will get another briefing before the full Council, he said. Dallas trails behind other Texas cities in banning e-cigarettes. Vaping was banned in Austin in 2017 and in Houston in 2022.
“The smoking ordinance passed long, long before vaping became trendy,” Evans said. “But now vaping is on the rise. It’s popular for certain groups, including teenagers, which is causing significant firsthand and secondhand health impacts.”
Evans said he spoke with local restaurant owners, who have told him the policy change would be welcomed since it would help with enforcement.
“They believe that this may be helpful to them because they don’t have to police people in their restaurants to figure out who’s vaping versus who’s smoking?” Evans said.
Dr. Philip Huang, the director of Dallas County’s Health and Human Services department, presented data to the committee showing that although the number of Texas teens using e-cigarettes has fallen over the years, the prevalence is still high among youth.
More than 23% of youth in 2014 reported using e-cigarettes, according to Texas A&M University’s 2014-21 Texas Youth Tobacco Survey. In 2021, about 16% of teens reported using e-cigarettes.
“What we’ve made tremendous progress in is in conventional smoking rates and reductions in those, especially among youth,” Huang said.
From 1999 until 2019, traditional cigarette use among 12th graders fell from 35% to 8.2%, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey.
E-cigarette use among 12th graders rose dramatically, from 1.6% in 2011 to 34.5% in 2019.
“E-cigarettes are reintroducing and re-addicting a whole generation of kids to nicotine, which is very concerning for all of us,” Huang said.
According to Dallas County data, a January 2020 outbreak of severe lung illnesses related to e-cigarette exposure affected 63 people, 35% of whom were kids under 18 years old.
“They were very severe,” Huang said “I remember visiting a couple of the cases in the hospital, many of them requiring ICU hospitalizations and so it is potentially a very serious public health issue.”
In 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracked an epidemic of more than 2,800 hospitalizations and 68 deaths related to a vitamin E acetate byproduct in illicit e-cigarettes, which prompted a public health response with bans and educational campaigns warning young adults of the risks.
The spike in reported lung injuries gripped the country and Dallas County reported a swell of hospitalizations and a few deaths related to the epidemic. A Dallas County teen with underlying health conditions died in 2020 from complications caused by vaping use, according to the county.
Banning vaping in public spaces appears to face little opposition from City Council members or some businesses that sell vaping products in Dallas.
Regulating the use of e-cigarettes in public spaces is smart for Dallas, said Bridget Payrot, the director of operations and human resources for The Gas Pipe, which operates five smoke shops throughout Dallas.
“We back that policy,” Payrot said. “First and foremost, the safety of everyone involved is the most critical element.”
Residents in public should have the right to breathe healthy air, Payrot said, adding that secondhand exposure to any smoke should be regulated.
“We’ve always just felt that you should be treating vaping as smoking no matter what,” Payrot said.
Dallas City Council member Paula Blackmon said at the meeting that the data on kids’ growing e-cigarette use was alarming considering how addictive nicotine can be. She wants to see the city create a public awareness campaign to educate more teens and parents about the potential dangers of vaping.
“We might want to even do a broader campaign and maybe partnering with the health department in this and working with parents,” Blackmon said. “Because once you get hooked, it’s kind of hard to come off of it.”
Dallas City Council member Jesse Moreno said he was proud to be part of the 2016 smoking ban in city parks and trails the city adopted.
But he said he wants to see some exceptions that were carved out – like allowing use at the State Fair of Texas, golf courses and gun ranges – to be “folded back into the broad regulation” as the city attempts to amend the code.
DALLAS – North Texas got less snow than expected overnight.
FOX 4 Weather Meteorologist Evan Andrews said it was one of those crazy forecasts where some people got exactly what they expected, and others got the opposite.
“Some of you got that heavier precipitation [on Thursday]. Others were waiting for some overnight, and the precip overnight really never got going. We got a little bit of light snow on the backend but not a ton,” he said.
For snow lovers, the snow that was on the ground from Thursday is still there. However, the total accumulation did not increase much overnight.
Snowfall Totals (as of 4 a.m. Friday)
Overall, the areas of highest accumulation were north of Highway 182 in Cooke and Grayson counties. Areas like Gainesville, Sherman, and Bonham got more than 6 inches of snow.
A lot of people in Wise, Denton, and Collin counties got between 3 and 6 inches.
Fort Worth and North Dallas saw between 1 and 3 inches.
People south of Dallas got less than an inch of snow.
Thursday Snowfall (as of 9 p.m.)
Future Snowfall
No additional accumulation is expected on Friday, with the exception of maybe a few light flakes early Friday morning.
The Source: The information in this story comes from the FOX 4 Weather team.
For its 2025 season, Second Thought Theatre is going all-in on world premieres written by Dallas-Fort Worth playwrights.
While exploring the question of “What space does STT provide in DFW?” executive director Parker Davis Gray says, “STT is a place where audiences intentionally attend to be challenged by and wrestle with sharp new stories and an electric take on reimagined classics.”
The company likens this perspective to the work produced by the independent TV and film production company A24, and says that has inspired this upcoming season.
Opening Second Thought’s 21st season is Blake Hackler’s Healed, which follows Gail, who has been sick for 25 years.
Every doctor, every test, every treatment — none of it has worked. Now, with nothing left to lose, she sells everything and heads to a radical health center in the Texas Hill Country, run by the enigmatic and controversial Dr. T. Will this be her cure, her salvation, or something else entirely? It runs April 25-May 10, 2025.
Hackler’s previous work at STT includes the premieres of What We Were, The Necessities, and the 2018 Ibsen adaptation Enemies/ People.
Ringing in the summer is the sci-fi experiment Your Wife’s Dead Body, written by STT artistic associate Jenny Ledel in her playwriting premiere.
While Ledel is remembered for her performances in Belleville, Grounded, and What We Were, this shift to the other side of the table has been years in the making.
“Over the past few years, I’ve been reading Jenny’s plays and attending readings of her work,” says Gray, “she has such an accessible, inviting, and exciting voice that will resonate with Dallas as we begin to navigate the unknown landscape the next few years will bring us.”
Your Wife’s Dead Body takes place in the near future, as Jane takes advantage of a new AI technology that would extend her lifespan … even if she’s not around to see it for herself. A play about relationships, the nature of self, and what may or may not remain of us when we leave this life behind, this story asks us to consider the new and difficult questions humans may face as new technologies emerge.
Ledel’s world premiere will be directed by former STT artistic director (and Ledel’s husband) Alex Organ. It runs July 11-26, 2025.
To close out the 2025 season, STT will dive into a new genre with INCARNATE by STT’s own Parker Davis Gray.
Trapped in her cell, Rosamund is hellbent on escaping her fate while the Man who kidnapped her struggles with the consequences of what grief can do, and how far he will go to escape it. Can they live with themselves? Or more importantly, who else is living with them?
A horror/thriller that follows two artists over the course of a year in their seemingly pointless pursuit of creation while suffering under great grief. Directed by Jenna Burnett, who also directed the original reading at Undermain Theatre, it runs October 17-November 1, 2025.
In addition to a world premiere-packed season, STT will continue its year-long playwriting incubator program, Thought Process, andadd another development program to the docket.
2025 will be the inaugural year of Second Thought Theatre’s Associate Director Program, a year-long cohort aimed at providing professional development through education, exposure, and opportunity. Three early-career professionals will have the opportunity to assist on one production of the 2025 season, gain training and receive feedback from professional directors, spend the year working on scene study with STT artistic director Carson McCain, and then end their year with each director taking the lead on one to three readings.
“The purpose of this cohort is to fill a gap we currently see in the DFW arts community,” says McCain. “We want to offer early career directors a safe place to develop their craft and seek feedback from their peers and other professionals. We want this to be a group that allows directors to grow without the pressures of impressing a professional theater in order to be hired again. STT will serve as facilitators and educators, giving feedback, training, and a place to ask questions.”
Season subscriptions and individual tickets are now on sale at SecondThoughtTheatre.com. All productions will take place at Bryant Hall.
Second Thought Theatre Announces their new season centered around cost and consequence as they showcase the sharp and bold voices of local DFW playwrights.
Dallas Weather: Winter storm forecast for noon
FOX 4 Weather Meteorologist Dylan Federico talks about how this winter storm will develop throughout the day. Heavier snow is expected Thursday night.
DALLAS – The game between the Dallas Mavericks and Portland Trail Blazers has been moved up due to today’s weather.
Weather changes Mavs-Blazers tip-off time
What we know:
The Mavericks announced on Thursday that the game will start at 6:30 p.m., an hour earlier than their scheduled 7:30 start.
Doors to the American Airlines Center will open at 5 p.m.
The shift comes with the heaviest snow of the day expected on Thursday night.
The Mavericks are encouraging fans to check the latest weather conditions and consider riding the DART rail to Victory Station.
Dallas Weather Forecast
The heaviest snowfall is expected to begin after dark and continue past midnight. Moderate snow is expected for several hours in the early evening, starting around 8 p.m. Snowfall should mostly be over by sunrise Friday morning.
The Source: Information in this article comes from the Dallas Mavericks and the FOX 4 Weather team.
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