That’s not tobacco. Fresno’s crackdown on sketchy smoke shops passes smell test | Opinion

The distinctive odor of burning marijuana wafted through the air when I pulled open the front door and walked into a central Fresno smoke shop.

Not in one of the city’s two permitted pot dispensaries, where onsite consumption remains a no-no. Rather, in one of the reported 119 retail tobacco shops that have been popping up all over the place in recent years.

The sort of establishment a trio of Fresno City Council members want to see shut down.

A young man, whom I later found out was the manager and a partner in the store, greeted me from behind the counter. After introducing myself, handing him a business card and making small talk, I asked about the smell.

He shrugged and blamed it on people loitering outside.

Opinion

“But the smell’s coming from in here,” I gently protested.

“Someone must be smoking in the back,” he replied, glancing over his shoulder toward an open door.

Judging by the young man’s clear eyes, it didn’t appear to be him. So I dropped that line of questioning and asked about what he knew about the impending city ordinance designed to close most of Fresno’s smoke shops and tightly regulate those that remain.

Not much, it turned out. Only a few tidbits from the TV news. So Anthony (who declined to give his last name) turned the tables and asked me what I knew.

“It’s scary because you don’t know what the future holds,” Anthony said a few minutes later. “We poured a lot of money into this shop, just to get shut down.”

Earlier this week while listening to Fresno City Councilmembers Miguel Arias, Nelson Esparza and Annalisa Perea come out so forcefully against smoke shops, my initial sympathies were with entrepreneurs like Anthony.

Surely, this is government overreach. More fuel for those that accuse Fresno of being business unfriendly.

A smoke shop field trip

But after challenging those assumptions by visiting a bunch of smoke shops across central and south Fresno, my eyes have been opened.

If 70% of the city’s smoke shops were placed in a vaporizer, as is portended by the ordinance’s backers, they wouldn’t be missed.

Until you drive around actually looking for them, the number of smoke shops is difficult to fathom. Especially in inner city neighborhoods, where it’s not uncommon to find two practically across the street from each other.

The 13 smoke shops I went to shared a relative sameness. They all smell the same (a blend of incense and patchouli oil), are laid out the same (designed around a U-shaped glass counter) and more or less sell the same things.

Besides cigarettes and loose-leaf tobacco, which don’t take up much shelf space, the bulk of the display cases and shelves contain rows of glass pipes, bongs of varying sizes, shapes and colors and other paraphernalia generally used for marijuana consumption. Which is legal, lest anyone need a reminder.

As for obvious crack and meth pipes, I looked, but didn’t spot any.

Smoke shops also sell clothing: You’ll find T-shirts and hoodies with familiar brands and likenesses of famous musicians. Baseball caps adorned with sports team logos. Also common are vape pen batteries, CBD products, digital scales and pocket knives. A few sold spray paint cans, including J’s Smoke Shop at First and Tulare, where I observed an older gentleman buy a combination taser/flashlight.

“The light’s really bright,” he told me, evidently satisfied with his $22 purchase.

All 13 sold cold drinks and snacks, consumable items that evidently allow smoke shops to operate as grocery stores in city zoning classifications.

Which would be humorous if it weren’t so sad.

Flavored vape juice on sale

Arias, in particular, characterized unregulated smoke shops as public health and safety nuisances that serve as havens for illegal drugs, online gambling and tobacco products that have been outlawed in California.

Whether that’s true or not, I cannot say. The five store managers I spoke to denied selling drugs or gaming, but accused others of doing so. Three directed me to nearby shops where I would supposedly find pot and mushrooms for sale. But when I got to those stores, there was nothing amiss.

One smoke shop – the same one where I smelled marijuana smoke – had three rows of flavored vape juice displayed on the wall. The type banned by Proposition 31, which then withstood a post-election lawsuit brought by Big Tobacco.

When I asked Anthony why he was selling illegal vape juice, he told me Fresno police officers were some of his best customers.

“If it’s banned, what are they doing coming in here and buying it?” he shot back.

I didn’t have an answer.

At other shops, managers told me they would welcome some form of regulation saying they are weary of customers coming in to request drugs and gambling.

“No random shop should be able to do online gaming and sell (pot) while the rest of us trying to do good honest business just die,” said Austin Neal, who manages Tower Smoke at Shields and First.

Nothing against trying to do good honest business. But if most of Fresno’s tobacco and drug paraphernalia stores suddenly went up in smoke, no alarms need be raised.