Simply because even though most people who have a brain and a mind to know that smoking-vaping are NOT the same. Laws or whatever lump them as the same. Smoking cigarettes=tobacco=nicotine and vaping=nicotine so they are treated equally.
Vaping safe/ safer/ just another evil habit to some. So to protect the innocents/good if cigarettes are to be kept 10 feet away, so must vaping.
I myself, keep to the shadows, the corners in which happy good people stay away from. Its in the dark corners of public places where I find the elusive fellow vapers , huddled like criminals.
Or one might find a herd of vapers, proudly vaping and blowing large billowy masses of clouds as the good/ innocents run past in fear of the "unknown"
As long as the laws/ ordinances lump vaping/ smoking as the same we must head the laws or be those "VAPERS"
Artist rendering of towns being invaded by the VAPOR-Zillas