FRESNO, Calif. – In the popular Tower District neighborhood in Fresno, smoke shops stand out among bars, restaurants and coffee shops.
Fresno City Council Member Miguel Arias pointed them out one Friday morning as he took a stroll down the main avenue.
“The east side of Tower Theater, there’s two more. On the south side of Olive [Avenue], there’s three more on Fulton Street,” he said.
In 2022, nearly 30,000 tobacco retail licenses were granted in California. Almost 600 of those licenses were granted in Fresno, according to the California Tobacco Health Assessment Tool, a grant-funded project that mapped the number of licensed operators. Fresno has more tobacco retail licenses per capita than the state.
The City Attorney’s Office confirmed 119 retail tobacco shops currently operate within the city. The biggest concentration of smoke shops are in inner city areas.
Arias said the smoke shop industry has flourished in the city, but has gone unchecked. That has led to the suspicion that “a lot of other activities” are taking place, such as online gambling, transactions using EBT cards and the sale of cannabis, he said.
But under a new ordinance, rules around smoke shops could soon change and the number of shops could be reduced. Arias said the city plans to put in measures requiring a conditional use permit with established operating hours, security, and limitations for minors. The city council is drafting an ordinance that would eliminate most smoke shops, down to just 14 – or around two per district.
Arias expects the ordinance to be introduced sometime this fall. That would trigger a 60 day public process, and then a vote by the city council.
By January, “the vast majority of smoke shops in the city will no longer be operating in the City of Fresno,” Arias said.
Not a new idea
The proposed ordinance won’t force owners to shut down immediately. In order to sell tobacco, the businesses will need to apply for a conditional use permit as well as an operating permit.
And that process alone may take up to six months.
City officials began looking into establishing new regulations for smoke shops last year. During check ups at local shops, Arias said, city workers found many shops selling very few tobacco products.
At a store Arias recently visited on Olive Avenue with this reporter, the walls were covered with rows of glass pipes and bongs of different shapes, sizes and colors.
“I don’t know anyone who uses any of these glass pipes for tobacco,” Arias says, looking around.
A scan of the room leads to a small shelf reserved for cigarettes. Arias says although the businesses are smoke shops, he doesn’t think tobacco is the main product being sold.
“It's everything but tobacco,” he said.
Across Fresno, smoke shops are able to operate under the same classification as a grocery store. Arias says this is because the businesses “utilize the zoning that is designed for grocery stores and those who sell consumable items.”
Regulate smoke shops like cannabis shops?
Compared to more than a hundred smoke shops, there are only two legal cannabis stores currently operating in Fresno.
Unlike the smoke shops, those business owners go through a long and meticulous process to set up, and it’s not cheap.
Kacey Auston has two cannabis locations waiting to open in the city. She said to stay in the game, “you have to be willing to have the resources and to tie up the resources in order to wait it out.”
Construction has just broken ground on her new location. And her second location in the Tower District is still awaiting a construction permit.
Local smoke shop owners are bracing for a hit to their business if the city’s ordinance moves forward.
Charles Janigian, president of the California Association of Retail Tobacconists, said he thinks the proposed ordinance feels “punitive.” He said retailers already face rising rents, higher insurance costs and other impacts to their businesses.
“Many small retailers of tobacco products would be forced out of business,” Janigian said.
He noted many smoke shops could be set up in a single city because it’s an attractive way to start a business. A tobacco retail license in California costs just $100 a year.
“So you have a state license and then a local license. Then you have to apply and receive a seller's permit,” Janigian said.
Neighbors grapple with smoke shops
Back in Fresno’s Tower District, Aaron Gossett said the number of smoke shops doesn’t bother him. He owns The Lincoln Pub bar on Olive Avenue and says the nearby smoke shops are convenient for his customers who smoke.
”They'd walk down there, get a pack of cigarettes, come back and drink. Or they'd walk by and have a drink before going in,” Gossett said. “And so I wouldn't say it's a huge positive but it definitely wasn't a negative.”
Gossett said he does take issue with the city deciding to target a specific category of businesses like smoke shops. He called it a “slippery slope.”
“They [could] feel like there's too many bars in the district or too many restaurants with alcohol and now, are they going to start shutting down bars and restaurants just because they feel like there's too many? I think that that's overstepping the lines,” Gossett said.
But others in the Tower District say they wouldn’t mind seeing fewer smoke shops – and more family-oriented local businesses.
“Tower’s a little bit of a food desert,” Claire Evans, a community engagement specialist with the Tower Neighborhood Association, said. ”There's a lot of concern for, ‘Oh, let's get some grocery stores in here,’ or even another restaurant.”
