The chairman of Fife’s licensing board is to write to the Scottish Government to seek guidance on the smoking of e-cigarettes in public places.
Councillor Bob Young has confirmed he will request advice from Holyrood after a national health body proposed the devices be banned from licensed premises in Scotland.
The move has been prompted by a letter to the chief executive of Fife Council, Steve Grimmond, by the Royal Environment Health Institute of Scotland.
Its chief executive, Tom Bell, said that its members had raised concerns about so-called “vaping” in public.
In his letter to Mr Grimmond, Mr Bell said the institute had discussed the matter in great depth.
“After a lengthy and well-informed discussion, a number of proposals were agreed including on directing me to write to all local authorities requesting that their licensing boards consider imposing a ban on the use of e-cigarettes in licensed premises.”
Members of Fife’s licensing board discussed the institute’s letter at its meeting in Kirkcaldy on Monday.
It is up to individual premises to determine whether or not to allow the use of e-cigarettes, which simulate traditional smoking by using a heating element to vaporise a liquid solution.
The use of e-cigarettes has risen dramatically in recent years and around two million people are now regularly using the devices in Britain.
However, governments have struggled to get to grips with imposing legislation on the products and there remains no restrictions on children buying them in Scotland. It was only in January that under-18s in England were banned from buying the devices.
Mr Young confirmed he would write to the Scottish Government to seek clarification on what action local authorities could take.
“We had a lot of discussion about this at our licensing forum meeting,” said Mr Young, who added that he would write to the Scottish Parliament for guidance so “we know what path we should follow”.