The director of the Lawrence-Douglas County health department says the answer to the age-old question is simple: It’s easy to open one.
Why are there so many vape shops in Lawrence?
Jonathan Smith, executive director of Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, said there’s a simple answer: You need $260 and a location to get a tobacco retail license. … That’s it.
During a work session with the Lawrence City Commission on Tuesday, Smith suggested the city consider a moratorium for a year to slow the growth. Vicki Collie-Akers, director of policy and planning with the health department, joined him.
The commission approved an ordinance in 2022 to increase the age to purchase tobacco products in the city to 21 from 18.
Don’t miss a beat … Click here to sign up for our email newsletters
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
LDCPH contracts with folks between the ages of 18 and 21, sends them in to tobacco retail facilities and see if they can buy, Smith said. The department issues citations to the locations that do sell to the contractors. The citations go through municipal court, resulting in an increasing scale of fines and suspensions for subsequent offenses.
Please support
The Lawrence Times!
Subscribe here.
LDCPH has found that 15% to 18% of retailers are selling to underage buyers, and three retailers have been closed temporarily over the past few years because they’ve had a second infraction, Collie-Akers said. A fourth case is pending.
“What we notice is after someone gets to their second conviction, or the seven-day suspension, we get a sudden change of ownership or a change of name, but the location stays the same,” Smith said. “So essentially, there’s been ways that have been figured out to ‘Oh, I can get around this.'”
Smith said the department wants to be able to address the issue. They provided the commission a proposed ordinance that he said would help them do that.
The uptick in vape shops and tobacco retailers is not just a perception, according to health department data: Licensed tobacco retailers in Lawrence have increased to 89 this year from 73 in 2023.
The licensed tobacco retailers include gas stations, grocery stores and the like, Smith said in response to Mayor Brad Finkeldei’s clarifying question. Collie-Akers said about one-third of the 89 are vape shops.
“If you really think about our community, we haven’t had growth of grocery stores; we haven’t had a lot of growth of gas stations,” she said. “That growth that we’ve pinpointed between 2023 and right now really is driven largely by those vape shops.”
Smith said the department doesn’t have data on the percentage of businesses’ sales that come strictly from tobacco products and asked if the city might be able to narrow that down.
A second approach the presenters suggested is updating policy to require retailers to be specific distances from certain settings, such as schools or other tobacco retailers. They also suggested increasing the tobacco licensing fee.
Finkeldei asked if they had seen any ordinances that use an administrative procedure rather than municipal court. Collie-Akers said she didn’t think so, but they could find out.
Finkeldei said he was concerned that when serious violations occur, “there are things happening to avoid that prosecution.” However, he said there are due process rights and complicated legal issues involved.
“My first hole we need to fill is when we know someone is selling to minors, we need to be able to enforce that in ways that are useful,” Finkeldei said.
He said he would be in favor of looking at a moratorium if the city can “fill a few of these holes” that way, but he was concerned it could take months to come up with the language for that when the city could be looking at a broader fix instead. He said he’d like legal staff and health department staff to help determine the best path forward.
Commissioners do not take binding action during work sessions. But Commissioner Amber Sellers said if they were directing staff Tuesday, she would want them to look at creating a 12-month moratorium.
“From a public health standpoint, this is a way to ask for forgiveness because, again, we’re trying to mitigate a crisis that could potentially be on our hands because of the nature of our community and its proximity to a lot of youth-oriented activities,” Sellers said.
Vice Mayor Mike Courtney said he’d be “down to vote on this next week” if staff could put together a moratorium that quickly.
Commissioner Mike Dever said he’d prefer to have “some pre-existing rules that we could apply rather than put a moratorium in place,” and he would be in favor of that.
City Attorney Toni Wheeler said she thinks staff will be able to get together with health department representatives to work out a moratorium or resolution fairly soon to address the holes they’ve identified.
See the department’s presentation at this link.
If local news matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
Don’t miss a beat — get the latest news from the Times delivered to your inbox:
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
Latest Lawrence news:
Cuyler Dunn/Lawrence Times
Cuyler Dunn/Lawrence Times
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
Cuyler Dunn/Lawrence Times
