PEORIA, Ill. – The Peoria City Council won’t issue any more tobacco shop licenses until it figures out some growing problems with those that sell vapes or e-cigarettes.
The Council this week voted to put a 90 day moratorium in place on the issuance of such licenses – excluding four pending applications – until a working group can come up with some potentially more stringent regulations and classifications for vape shops, especially those who might also be selling illegal items or ones not allowed.
“We need to review all the existing licenses and come back to the council with some classification of those licenses, which is legal under the law, but it has to be reasonably based,” said Patrick Hayes, Peoria Corporation Counsel. “We have to develop a record of why we’re creating classes, why those different classes are going to be treated differently from a regulatory standpoint, as well as a licensure fee standpoint.”
Hayes says a working group is trying to go over those issues, and will likely take less than 90 days.
The moratorium passed witn one “no” vote – from member John Kelly, who claims the solution is to put together, in his words, “really nasty” penalties, instead of snuffing out businesses the council just may not like.
“I’m worried about just pushing people around because we can push them around,” said Kelly. “We might need 90 days to think about this, but we don’t have to shut things down for 90 days.”
Kelly called the overall idea of the ordinance “overboard,” and says a section of the ordinance suggesting there is a “surplus” of vape shops in Peoria just isn’t accurate. He said if that were the case, they would be closing up shop, not opening up more.
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