New Westminster (November 12, 2024): NWP City Councillor Daniel Fontaine has submitted a motion to Council calling for its support of limiting the location and overall number of vape shops within the city. If approved later this month, staff would 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,” says Fontaine. “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.”
Unlike cannabis retailers which go through a much more rigorous approval process, vape shops can pop up almost anywhere. 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,” says Fontaine. “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.”
The first comprehensive review on trends in vaping/e-cigarette use among youth across the globe was published by a team from McGill and Harvard in 2022. One of the authors of that study, researcher Lynnette Nathalie Lyzwinski stated “…There has been a problematic global trend of e-cigarette use in teenagers and young adults who have never previously smoked.” She adds that vaping increases the risks of initiating cigarette smoking and dual smoking of cigarettes and e-cigarettes, as well as downstream substance use including cannabis.