Cleveland City Council Entertains Significant Laws to Limit Growth of Smoke Shops, Regulate Them

Vape Land on Euclid Avenue in Downtown. If passed, new city law introduced Monday could force every smoke shop in town to pay around $300 to $500 a year for a license to sell product. Credit: Mark Oprea

When Dave Margolius took the helm of the Department of Public Health in 2022 he arrived with clear-eyed agenda.

There were lingering concerns for particle pollution and air quality. There was the typical worry about food deserts. But nothing seemed to haunt Margolius more than one unsettling fact: Cleveland has the highest smoking rates, for a city of its size, in the country. (About one in three Clevelanders are smokers.)

On Monday, City Council’s Health, Human Services and Arts Committee heard from Margolius and Chief Zoning Administrator Shannon Leonard heard the latest proposal on how to curb those numbers with the most stringent legislation of its kind since Cleveland upped the legal age for tobacco purchases to 21 in 2015.

Margolius and Leonard helped introduce a suite of new laws designed to monitor and curb the growth of smoke shops and their paraphernalia. Which, in everyone’s mind, seem to have gotten out of hand: Cleveland has roughly 200 to 400 stores that hawk vapes and kratom. (The city’s received 75 permit applications for new shops since January alone.)

“A lot of us have been waiting a long time for this day,” Ward 12 Councilwoman Rebecca Maurer said at Council’s meeting Monday morning.

“We were already behind the 8-ball on this,” she added. “We’ve already had a proliferation of these open, even in the last few weeks, months. We need to get a grip on this—and move along as quickly as possible.”

Ground-floor retail vacancies and the state’s legalization of adult-use marijuana in December of 2023 have melded together to spark a flooding of perceived opportunities for shop owners wanting to cash in on the market.

The difference is that, as Margolius made note of Monday, other Midwestern cities—Detroit, Columbus, Cincinnati—have had regulations in place to stymie oversaturation. Columbus’ ban on flavored tobacco, which has led to closed stores for violators, has long been on Margolius’ wishlist of legislative tools that could cut down on vaping rates in teenagers, for example. Council has long been cautious of approving, fearing it might hurt profit margins for already struggling corner stores.

But as far as any laws whatsoever, Cleveland is relatively dry.

“We don’t have anything,” Margolius told Council. “We don’t currently regulate for smoke shops.”

If passed by Council, smoke shops—defined as any store more than 20 percent devoted to such product—would be required to register with the city. They’d have to pay for and renew a license every year, which could cost anywhere from $300 to $500, Margolius said. And those that don’t register would get a cease-and-desist letter placard pasted on their door.

Dave Margolius, Cleveland’s head of the Department of Public Health, has made a fight against tobacco one of his main priorities. Credit: Mark Oprea

And shops would agree to two random health inspections annually. Anyone selling kratom, Delta-8, or vapes to adults under 21 could face fines up to $1,000. Fail your fourth inspection in a year and a half? Your license will be revoked.

Smoke shops covertly selling THC products are also targets. Those that brought councilmembers to the edge of their seats: many had stories to tell about shady and opaque “dispensaries”—by name only—advertising “blunts,” “flower,” “dabs.” And all were taken aback when Leonard and Margolius pulled out the data: there are only seven dispensaries in the city legally allowed to sell adult-use THC.

The potential violators’ names came up instantaneously from various members in attendance.

“I mean, that’s become problematic,” Ward 5 Councilman Richard Starr said. “They’re popping up every day. I get calls. Calls about young people buying marijuana from these locations. And there’s nothing that’s helping us regulate” them.

Shops interviewed by Scene seemed both cautious and curious about the suite of laws designed to keep closer watch on their businesses. But none flinched at a $500 license, or the law preventing new shops being built less than two miles from existing ones.

“I don’t think we would have a problem with that,” a manager at Vapeland on Euclid Avenue told Scene when asked about the license requirement. “I think it would be okay.”

Over at Ashes Smokeshop on West 6th, where you can buy kratom pills and Delta-8 by the bud, general manager Sam Chahda shared a similar shoulder shrug when read a list of changes proposed by Margolius.

IDs are already checked religiously, he said. A $500 fee to stay legal wouldn’t be a big deal. The only irritation would be if the city was able to cut away, say, vape sales altogether. “You take that away,” Chahda said, “that’s, like, 50 percent of my business.”

But put the kibosh on new shops a few blocks over? Chahda’s totally in line.

“They need to limit them!” he said, with a laugh. “I mean, all my friends run smoke shops, and we say the same thing: there’s too many of them already.”

The legislation will head to the finance committee in the coming weeks before a possible hearing before full council.