By Brandon T. Bisceglia
The Orange Town Plan & Zoning Commission at its July 1 meeting voted to make its prohibition on new smoke and vape shops permanent.
The commission in January passed a six-month moratorium on such establishments. That moratorium would have expired in July without further action.
Under the new rules, stores that use more than 20 percent of their floor space for nicotine and tobacco products will be prohibited from coming into town. The language was meant to exempt other establishments that sell tobacco products as part of a larger suite of products, such as gas station convenience stores.
The moratorium came after a unanimous vote held by the Orange Board of Selectmen in November that recommended the TPZC limit the opening of additional smoke shops in town. The vote by the selectmen was not binding on the zoning commissioners, but sent a public signal about the direction they wanted the town to go.
Director of Community Services Stacey Johnson and Youth Services and Prevention Coordinator Chantelle Bunnell led the effort to limit the stores. They have argued that there has been an explosion of vaping among youth and of smoke shops that sell vaping products.
“We do have a national health crisis among our teens regarding vaping,” Bunnell had told the selectmen in November. “Prevention agencies like ours are trying to gage how to cope with this really fast-moving crisis.”
In a memo to the TPZC, First Selectman Jim Zeoli used similarly dire language to describe the situation.
“Vaping has become a national health crisis, and the addiction it creates is much worse than cigarette nicotine,” Zeoli wrote.
According to Bunnell, Orange currently has five smoke/vape shops, excluding old-fashioned cigar shops. Cigar shops are exempted from the prohibition under the new regulation.
Several residents wrote letters to the commission in support of a permanent ban, including the chair of the Community Services Commission, Public Health Department, Orange Youth Services and the police department, which TPZC Chair Oscar Parente read into the record before the vote.
Milford changed its regulations in September to permanently prevent any further smoke shops from opening. The city already has 15 such stores.
Under Milford’s new rules, those stores can stay open where they are but would not be able to relocate elsewhere in the city. Orange would similarly not force existing stores to close. Some officials had argued that Milford’s prohibition would push more of the market toward Orange.