Cleveland City Council is teaming up with the Cleveland Department of Public Health to push for ordinances of local smoke and vape shops to address what officials and community leaders say is a growing problem.
The number of smoke shops has nearly doubled between 2022 and 2025, according to the Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods at Case Western Reserve University. While the total number is not certain, there are between 450 and 600 vape and smoke shops in the city, said Dr. David Margolius, director of the Cleveland Department of Public Health.
These shops are businesses that use at least 20% of their floor space to sell kratom, CBD, delta-8 and other cannabinoids; tobacco and nicotine products; electric smoking devices (vapes); and accessories to these products.
They are also mostly unregulated, and Ward 14 Councilperson Jasmin Santana pointed to the concentration of vape shops along West 25th Street in her community on Cleveland’s West Side as a result of this.
“These vape shops are too close together," she said after a recent tour of some of these shops in her neighborhood. "They're taking space from businesses that could move in and service our community. Residents have asked for coffee shops. They've asked for more restaurants, healthy restaurants, bookstores. And right now, we're just filled, we're full of vape shops. Twelve in just like a mile corridor area, and so it's very disheartening.”
Santana is joined by Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin, Ward 9 Councilperson Kevin Conwell and Margolius in backing ordinances to regulate these shops.
The ordinances set zoning limits where any new stores cannot be less than two miles from a current store and require licensing of the businesses and a 21-year age limit on the sale of vaping and tobacco products. They'd also prohibit marijuana sales and limit advertising to 25% coverage of outside windows.
Factfinding tour
But before they started committee hearings, Conwell, Margolius and Santana set out on an early March afternoon for an unannounced tour of several smoke shops located within a few blocks of one another on West 25th Street to see what these shops were like.
Ideastream joined the government officials on the tour, where each of the three businesses they visited painted a very different picture, from one shop where a young clerk seemingly had no knowledge of the business, to another store, Fli High Smoke Shop on Clark Avenue, where the owner, Mohammad Hamad, knew about his business and was open to the regulations.
“What we're proposing is to create a city license that would give you health inspections twice a year, just like restaurants have," Margolius explained.
"We need that, for sure," Hamad agreed.
"That's the right answer, thank you," Margolius said.
"Smoke shop has to be the cleanest... Smoke shop has to be like the pharmacy, for sure," Hamad said.
The last visit was an entirely different story, if only a block or so away, distance-wise.
At this store, blaring music could be heard a block away, and when Santana entered, she turned to see an armed man with a gun in a holster and a dog.
“Uh-uh, I’m scared of dogs," she said to her companions as she backed away.
She then asked the two men behind the counter to turn the music down so they could talk, reminding them they'd spoken before.
"You remember me?” she asked. But the meeting was soon over without any discussion.
Looking back after the tour, Conwell said standards are necessary.
“I got a chance to talk with the different shop owners and some of them, they're operating in their own silos," he said. "It needs to be regulated and that way, you can better protect your residents.”
Two sides of argument
Hamad, the owner of Fli High Smoke Shop, said his business makes a positive difference in residents’ lives.
“They need your help, probably they want to quit smoking cigarettes," Hamad said. "You have to have the knowledge for this. You have to know your vapes, which one is good for them, which one is not good for them.”
Hamad claimed he’s helped 11 mostly elderly smokers quit over the last four years with vapes.
But Julian Khan, a long-time community advocate in Cleveland’s Buckeye neighborhood, said these shops are a health threat.
“This is an attack on our communities," he said. "We just did a community health needs assessment in this neighborhood. We know what people want aspirationally, and it's not smoke shops.”
One committee vote down
The series of ordinances were unanimously approved March 7 by the city's planning commission, with Chair Lillian Kuri voicing her support after the vote.
“I think that this ordinance is really trying to make sure that people get to live in an environment that's inspiring and beautiful and wonderful and healthy for families to raise their kids,” she said.
The full list of ordinances will go before the health committee March 24.
