Any vape shop or hookah bar could soon have to wait a year before trying to open in Floral Park.
The village is considering a one-year moratorium on the businesses so officials can examine how to regulate them, village Trustee Lynn Pombonyo said. The Board of Trustees will hold a public hearing on the matter on Sept. 20.
“The village board is requesting this moratorium to provide sufficient opportunity to evaluate permitted uses in the business districts and to determine whether the permitted uses should be statutorily amended, altered, modified, expanded or appealed,” Pombonyo said.
The hearing will come about two months after a Queens businessman pulled his proposal for a vape shop selling vaporizers and electronic cigarettes at 344 Jericho Turnpike in Floral Park. The devices use heat to turn flavored vegetable-based liquids, some of which contain nicotine, into vapor as a substitute for smoking.
No other such stores have been proposed in Floral Park, and none would be allowed to open during the moratorium, Pombonyo said. The moratorium is the first proposal to result from an ongoing review of village building codes, Pombonyo said.
Nearby villages, including New Hyde Park, Williston Park and Mineola, have in recent months restricted vape shops to industrial zones or banned any business that allows smoking or “vaping” on the premises. Two Great Neck villages have banned hookah bars, where patrons smoke a tobacco and liquid mixture through water pipes.
Floral Park wants to look at other municipalities’ rules and craft its own because recent laws have varied and not provided a universal answer, Pombonyo said. Officials would also examine health research about the effects of vaping and smoking hookah, she said.
“It’s really a time to research,” Pombonyo said.
Vaping advocates say the practice is a safer alternative to tobacco and that it helps people quit smoking, a claim supported by some medical research. But a Harvard study published last year found chemicals in vaping liquids can damage the lungs. The federal Food and Drug Administration now regulates vaping and hookah products as strictly as tobacco.
Floral Park residents, including Nadia Holubnyczyj-Ortiz of the Hillcrest Civic Association, worried that the proposed vape shop would attract children and facilitate the use of illegal drugs. The proprietor, Anupam Yadav, said he would check identification with a scanner and would not have allowed anyone younger than 19 in the store.
Holubnyczyj-Ortiz said she is glad to see the village “staying ahead of the curve” with a moratorium on the potentially risky businesses as more young families move into Floral Park.
“We’re talking about something [vaping] that’s a lot of times publicly geared towards children without explicitly saying so, with the different flavors and the glamorous end of it,” she said.
Photo courtesy of Vaping360.com.
