City Plan Department map
Under proposed zoning update, new smoke shops wouldn't be allowed to open within the orange circles, which describe a 3,000-foot radius for each existing licensed tobacco retailer.
Would barring new smoke shops from opening within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, and places of worship do enough to protect neighbors from those retailers’ harmful wares?
Would imposing a 3,000-foot buffer between new and existing tobacco sellers only serve to protect existing stores’ “monopolies” on their blocks?
And, taken together, would these two distance restrictions effectively impose a citywide ban — when the law’s sponsors simply want to limit, but not outlaw, new shops from popping up?
Those questions rose to the fore during a special online meeting of the City Plan Commission Thursday night.
The two-hour meeting focused entirely on a proposed new set of smoke shop zoning regulations, as introduced by Board of Alders Majority Leader Richard Furlow, East Rock/Downtown Alder Eli Sabin, and Fair Haven Alder Frank Redente, Jr.
The proposed ordinance amendment would change the zoning code to require all tobacco and vape-product sellers to obtain a soon-to-be-created municipal license. It would also limit such vendors’ abilities to advertise their products through bright, attention-grabbing displays.
One of the provisions that commissioners looked most closely into during Thursday’s meeting involves limiting where in the city new smoke shops can open — at a time when smoke shops are popping up at seemingly every corner.
As City Plan Department staffer Alexander Castro explained in his overview of the proposal, the zoning update would establish two different “buffer areas” for new retailers of tobacco or vape products. Those distance requirements are modeled off of, and expand upon, buffers already in place in the zoning code for liquor stores.
The first such distance requirement would prohibit new smoke shops from opening up within 1,000 feet of any school, house of worship, or public park.
The second would prohibit new smoke shops from opening up within 3,000 feet of any existing tobacco or vape retailer.
“This requirement would limit possible negative community impacts on sensitive uses and oversaturation of tobacco and vapor product retailers,” the City Plan Department’s staff report states.
City Plan Commission Chair Leslie Radcliffe challenged the potential efficacy of those distance requirements as she questioned city staff and the ordinance amendment’s backers about who stands to benefit the most.
She said that schools, places of worships, and parks — the venues that would be protected by a 1,000-foot buffer under this new law — “are usually attended by people who live in the area.”
Existing smoke shops — which would be protected by a 3,000-foot buffer — are often owned and patronized by people who live outside of New Haven, she contended.
Might these zoning regs simply serve to protect an existing smoke shop’s “monopoly” in any given area? “There’s going to be a little benefit for the community,” Radcliffe said, “but there’s going to be a huge benefit for the retailer” that’s already in business.
Furlow described the proposed distance requirements as “a compromise of not going the route of what some other cities have done,” and outright barring new smoke shops from opening up in town.
Instead of such a citywide prohibition on new smoke businesses, Furlow said, this ordinance amendment would put in a 3,000-foot buffer “to minimize the amount of smoke shops in our city.”
On one stretch of Whalley, he said, “there are four smoke shops on one street. It’s too much.”
“I understand,” Radcliffe commiserated. On Washington Avenue in the Hill, she said, there are three smoke shops within two blocks.
Is there really so much demand for all these smoke shops? Furlow asked. “It’s enough.” That was the motivation behind the 3,000-foot distance requirement between new and existing smoke shops, he continued. “It’s to space them out so we don’t have a congestion of smoke shops, especially in some of our urban areas” where they just keep popping up “like barbershops, all over the place.”
Radcliffe praised that goal of trying to tackle the problem of the “concentration” of smoke shops around town.
One public commenter, however, pointed out that the distance requirements might be more of a citywide prohibition on new smoke shops than city staff and the alders are making it out to be.
In written testimony submitted in advance of Thursday’s meeting, Kevin McCarthy pointed to a map put together by city staff that shows where existing state-licensed tobacco and vape retailers are currently located in the city. That map includes orange-shaded circles that describe a 3,000-foot radius around each existing retailer. In effect, no new smoke shops would be able to open up within those circles.
This map is helpful, McCarthy wrote, but it leaves out the second distance requirement, involving parks, schools, and places of worship. After all, the proposed law would bar new smoke shops from opening up within 1,000 feet of those uses. The law also has a broad definition of affected businesses — and would include gas stations and convenience stores that have a state-issued license to sell tobacco.
“I believe an overlay map would show that a new tobacco licensee would be barred from most if not all areas in the city,” when taking into account both the 3,000-foot and 1,000-foot rules, McCarthy wrote.
“The exclusion applies to all tobacco licensees, not just smoke shops. If a new convenience store or gas station wanted to locate in the city, it would be limited to very small areas unless it chose to forego selling tobacco products. Similarly, an existing licensee which sought to relocate in the city would face very limited options unless it surrendered its tobacco license. This may be desirable on public health grounds, and would be within the city’s zoning authority. But with regard to city licensure, distance restrictions, and the sign provisions, I do not believe this was contemplated in the [Board of Alders] order.”
Nevertheless, the commissioners present at Thursday’s online meeting voted unanimously in support of recommending approval of the smoke shop zoning regs, sending it along to the Board of Alders Legislation Committee for further review.
“I think reducing the density [of smoke shops] is of great importance. I think this would accomplish that,” Commissioner Josh Van Hoesen said.
Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand agreed. “I am very concerned with the proliferation of these establishments,” he said. This proposed zoning update targets “a hole [in the zoning code] that needed to be addressed.”
While this proposal may not solve all of the problems with existing smoke shop retailers, Radcliffe concluded, “it at least will keep the infection from spreading” as the city contemplates adopting soon to-be-introduced new rules around local licenses for existing smoke shops.
Thomas Breen file photo