Coun. Daniel Fontaine wants the city to cap the number of vape shops in New Westminster.
The New West Progressives councillor has submitted a motion to council calling for its support of limiting the location and overall number of vape shops within the city. The motion proposes that staff report back to council on the powers it has to restrict new vape shops in New Westminster.
“I’m hoping council agrees with me that the unfettered proliferation of vape shops in neighbourhoods throughout our city is not something we want to encourage or support,” Fontaine said in a news release. “I’ve been hearing from residents in the community that they want us to monitor this more closely and put a cap on the overall number of vape shops that operate within city limits.”
Hanieh Berg, the city’s corporate officer, said she has received Fontaine’s notice of motion and anticipates it will be considered at the Dec. 2 regular council meeting. (Before motions are considered by council, they are presented as notice of motions; the notice of motion for this item will be noted on council’s Nov. 18 agenda and will be up for council’s consideration at the next meeting, which is on Dec. 2.)
According to the New West Progressives, a series of studies have shown that ease of access to vape products has the risk of encouraging increased consumption, in particular with a younger demographic.
“The city just released our retail strategy, and I think we’d really like to be seeing more restaurants, cafes and locally owned businesses along our major corridors,” Fontaine said. “The time has come for us to look at what tools we have to limit both the overall number and location of vape shops in our city.”
Blair Fryer, the city’s acting director of community services, said there are currently 11 open business licenses and two pending applications for vape stores, as permitted under the general “retail stores” land use category of the city’s zoning bylaw.
“Given this, vape stores are permitted in most commercial districts and there are no category-specific regulations in the business license bylaw that place additional regulations on them,” he said. “Staff are aware of a complaint earlier this year regarding a newly established vape store in the city.”
According to Fryer, restricting the number of vape stores in New West is something that would typically be done through the zoning bylaw. This would be done by creating a land-use category that is separate from retail stores and would also include identifying appropriate locations (and zoning districts) for this type of use.
“Taking this approach would restrict any new stores from opening, while existing businesses would be able to continue operating as legally non-conforming,” he said in an email to the Record.
The New Westminster Progressives’ news release cites comments from one of the authors of a review in vaping/e-cigarette use among youth, which was published by a team from McGill and Harvard in 2022. It quoted one of the authors of that study, researcher Lynnette Nathalie Lyzwinski, as saying “there has been a problematic global trend of e-cigarette use in teenagers and young adults who have never previously smoked.”
The New West Progressives’ news release stated vape shops can pop up almost anywhere, unlike cannabis retailers which go through a “much more rigorous” approval process.
In preparation for the federal Cannabis Act, which took effect in October 2018 and allowed Canadians to buy non-medical cannabis from retailers who are authorized to sell the product, the City of New Westminster adopted a framework for regulating cannabis. The city developed criteria for consideration applications for cannabis shops (with an initial intake of one per identified neighbourhood) that includes issues related to location and land use; business operations, nuisance, and security; and esthetics (such as signage, windows, and gates).
