In an attempt to capitalize on a growing trend, Buffalo Grove officials say they are considering one of the region’s first ordinances that would regulate e-cigarette stores.
“We’d love to see vacancies filled, and we’d prefer to see vacancies filled with retail-generating stores,” said Chris Stilling, Buffalo Grove’s community development director, who is researching the nascent e-cigarette market. “But we have to keep the public health in mind.”
At present, e-cigarette-only businesses are not permitted in Buffalo Grove, but anyone hoping to open one could apply for an amendment that would give them access, and uncertain restrictions, Stilling said.
“We felt it was very important for us to get out ahead of it,” Stilling said of the current project. “We have been receiving numerous inquiries.”
E-cigarettes have been widely marketed as a healthier alternative to traditional smoking. The process involves placing a liquid that contains nicotine into a battery-powered, cigarette-shaped device that heats the liquid into water vaper.
The American Lung Association advocates that “regulation of e-cigarettes is desperately needed to protect children and the public,” according to its website, and federal, state and local authorities have only recently started to react.
Former Gov. Pat Quinn made the sale of e-cigarettes — also called “vapor products” — illegal to those under 18 in 2013.
“Our biggest concern is the issue of our police department, and enforcement,” Stilling said.
Vape products can be found, on prominent display, in most traditional smoke shops in Buffalo Grove and elsewhere. The ordinance Stilling is working on, if eventually approved by the Village Board, would allow vape-only shops to open, and define under what parameters they would operate.
Dan Patel, owner of two traditional cigarette stores on the north side of Lake Cook Road, welcomed any regulation Buffalo Grove feels like approving — in the hopes that it will stifle future competition. His vapor products are selling well, he said, and he would rather keep the market to himself.
“People are jumping into this,” said Patel — but he thinks an over-saturation point is coming. “No one’s going to make money.”
But Stilling saw market needs to be met, just a few feet south of Patel’s two stores. Buffalo Grove exists in both Cook and Lake counties, but its tobacco stores exist only on the Lake side, where taxes are notably lower. If Buffalo Grove were to permit vape shops, Stilling saw them fitting in on the village’s south side.
“It’s possible that the e-cig stores would fill the void on the Cook County side,” said Stilling. “Ultimately, the market’s going to dictate where they go.”
Vape shops have popped up elsewhere in neighboring villages. Larry Bury, policy analyst at the Northwest Municipal Conference, said most of the area’s suburbs consider e-cigarettes a “permitted use,” meaning that businessmen can open them in any storefront zoned for retail without hindrance from the local government. The only nearby municipality that Bury knew of that regulates vape shops is Niles, where they require a special-use permit.
Stilling’s research into e-cigarette regulation is the product of the Village Board unanimously denying his original idea —a 180-day moratorium on the issuance of permits to new tobacco stores, giving him time to look further into vapor products’ health effects before those effects grew any more in Buffalo Grove.
Recoiling at the idea of temporarily outlawing new businesses that want to sell a product that is both legal and heavily taxable, the trustees sent Stilling in a different direction.
“I know this is new, but there’s enough information out there,” board member Les Ottenheimer told Stilling during the Dec. 7 meeting.
Stilling said on Jan. 12 that he expected to have a draft of the ordinance ready for the planning and zoning commission’s meeting on Jan. 20.
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The growing e-cigarette industry carries with it large potential for both health problems and new revenue. Bury said he was interested to see what becomes of Stilling’s work in Buffalo Grove, and whether it prompts villages in which vape shops are a permitted use to adjust their ordinances.
“It’s such a new product, that doesn’t quite fit in with tobacco stores,” Bury said. “I don’t think there’s any general consensus about what to do.”
Twitter: @RonnieAtPioneer