Having been a smoker for 25 years, Jamie Newell knows first hand the effects cigarettes have on one’s health. Newell has not had a cigarette since March of this year, and two months ago she opened the business Cloud 509, a new downtown vape lounge that sells tobacco-free vaping products.

“I wanted to quit smoking for a long time,” Jamie Newell said. “I tried the prescriptions, and I tried the gum, and I tried the patches, and it was just always easier to smoke.”

After a bad case of bronchitis forced her to quit smoking, Newell started using e-cigarettes to vape and kicked her habit for good. E-cigarettes use a battery to heat the e-juice which turns into vapor that can be smoked.

“I feel bad for putting people through having to smell cigarettes all the time,” Jamie Newell said.

Newell’s daughter, Cloud 509 co-owner, Libby Quade, has never been into smoking cigarettes, but she does smoke hookah and vapes, so she is familiar with the products. Growing up in Everett, Quade saw a lot of her schoolmates get into smoking.

“When my mom quit smoking, we walked by an ash tray in front of Fred Meyer, and she was like ‘what’s that smell?’’ Quade said, “and I was like, ‘that’s an ash tray,’ and she said ‘I can’t believe I smelled like that for 25 years.’”

One of the controversies around e-cigarettes is that they are a gateway to cigarettes. Jamie Newell does not think this to be true. She hopes that if people do choose to smoke, they would consider e-cigs.

Jamie Newell moved to Ellensburg in 2011 with her daughter and her husband, Norman Newell. The family was not a fan of Everett, and they hated all the rain.

“I thought Ellensburg would be a much better place to raise a family,” Norman Newell said.

The owners of Cloud 509 say business was slow at first, and they had a hard time finding advertisers because many associate their product with tobacco.

“They see the vapor, and they think ‘oh that’s smoke,”’ Quade said. “It’s water vapor. It doesn’t have any chemicals in it.”

Jamie Newell and her daughter both agree that business has picked up since school started.

“When [the college students] were gone, it was dead,” Quade said. “I look forward to when the college kids are here. It’s a lot more busy.”

Jamie Newell has a variety of customers coming into her shop, but says she sees a lot more college aged customers.

“A lot of the older crowd [are] pretty much set in their ways,” Norman Newell said. “So to try to help change to going from a cigarette with 1,000 chemicals in it to something that has five chemicals in it is kinda rough.”

Norman Newell has noticed over the past year that he is seeing a lot more people using e-cigs.

“I shouldn’t say it’s a fad,” Norman Newell said. “But it’s becoming a very popular way of quitting cigarettes.”

Cloud 509 is also a vape lounge, which provides coffee, tea and an overall comfortable environment. Jamie Newell did have to obtain a tobacco license, despite not selling any tobacco products, but the town has welcomed the establishment.

“There are three salons in this building that do perms,” Jamie Newell said. “If no one is complaining about the smell of perms, no one is going to complain about this.”

Quade takes pride in the fact that they get most of their products in Washington. Cloud 509 carries 25 flavors of e-juices with different levels of nicotine, so people can wean themselves off of cigarettes.

“My biggest mission in all of this is to be able to provide knowledge and information and education and support on it because you can’t buy a lot of my products in the smoke shops here,” Jamie Newell said.