Vapor Depot finds niche with smoking alternative
Ryan Bliss of Vapor Depot in the Bonner Mall holds a few of the products he sells as alternatives to smoking. Business has been so good since he and his wife, Lindsay, opened in the mall in January that he plans to expand his business to Kalispell and Missoula. (Photo By RALPH BARTHOLDT)
PONDERAY — They stand at the counter and puff, the gray vapor rising through the spray of fluorescent lights.
They hold what look like cigarettes, savoring on the inhale, exhaling the vapor as if it were smoke.
The patrons at the counter of Vapor Depot are testing new flavors: peach, strawberry, vanilla, or the old standbys that taste like cigarettes.
What they exhale is not smoke, but a water-based vapor, said Ryan Bliss, owner of Vapor Depot in the Bonner Mall.
Bliss smoked more than a pack a day before puffing his first electronic cigarette.
“I was totally blown away by how satisfying it was,” Bliss said.
When his auto industry job was snuffed out two years ago, he lit into the electronic cigarette business, selling the same products that prompted him to quit smoking cigarettes.
He does not call the line of Vapor Depot products that he sells — including the vapor pens, cigars and pipe — cessation devices, although patrons puffing at his counter share tales of using the pen-like products to quit smoking.
He calls it a smoking alternative.
“I want to bypass the bad stuff,” a man who didn’t want to be identified said. “This gives me a lot of alternatives to slow down and stop cigarettes.”
He smoked four packs a day since forming a cigarette habit 40 years ago, he said.
Angelina Ramsay started smoking before she was 10.
Ramsay grew up in a commune.
“My parents were hippies,” the 32-year-old said. “There was not a lot of discipline.”
She started with Benson and Hedges and did not look back.
While planning a trip to New Orleans a few months ago she bought a starter pack because she wanted to smoke in airports and on the plane.
She liked the product so much, that she cut back on her cigarette habit.
“I hardly smoke regular cigarettes at all,” she said.
The cigarette-like vapor sticks use batteries, microchips and a nicotine extract from plants in several degrees of potency and a variety of flavors.
Ingredients, according the products’ advertising are limited to water, non-tobacco nicotine, propylene glycol which is used as a moisturizer in toothpaste and mouthwash as well as nontoxic antifreeze. Glycerol, a solvent, sweetener and preservative is also used along with flavoring.
“It looks like smoke and it tastes like a cigarette, if you wish,” Bliss said. “Or, any of 30 flavors.”
Costs start at $60 and increase to $140. Refill bottles of juice, the equivalent of two cartons of cigarettes, said Bliss, cost $20.
“That’s like a buck a pack,” he said.
The big draw, he said, is that people who like to smoke because of the savory inhale and exhale, the tactile cigarette between their fingers and other aesthetic reasons get similar pleasure from his products without the deadly byproducts.
In addition, the faux cigarettes can be smoked in non-smoking areas because there is no smoke involved.
Ramsay likes the kick.
“It’s more fun than smoking cigarettes,” she said.