Source: Hudson Reporter
Secaucus has again amended regulations and licensing for electronic smoking devices and establishments, an update of Chapter 141 of the Town Code.
The previously adopted placed restrictions on smoking in public areas and setting licensing requirements for establishments that sell electronic smoking devices in the interest of public health. Upon the review and recommendation of the Board of Health, the mayor and council have determined that updates to this chapter are needed to reflect updated licensing regulations and fees.
Specifically, the ordinance updates the regulations to note that there will be no more than 11 licenses may be issued to operate a retail electronic smoking device establishment in town. The ordinance also adds sections outlining disqualifying violations.
Mayor Michael Gonnelli and the Town Council introduced the ordinance at its October 12 meeting and adopting it in November 9.
“So we did an ordinance within the last couple of months,” explained Town Administrator Gary Jeffas. “We had it down as nine vendors. But after the ordinance came through, I was talking to the Health Department and we actually have currently 11 licensed vendors.”
“It was not the town’s intent to revoke and remove licenses, but we didn’t want them to expand it any further. This ordinance is really correcting and the only change really is to that number to come in line with the actual licenses we currently have out there.
Jeffas also noted that the other provisions regarding disqualifying violations were something the town was already contemplating.
“We put that in to further identify that if it was a shop that was not adhering to the law, selling a product that’s not really permissible for sale, has cannabis, or something like that. So if you’re getting violations from a policing standpoint and the public health, obviously we would have the right to remove that license due to the behavior of the establishment.”
According to Jeffas, this ordinance and the previous one aim to restrict the number of vaping vendor establishments in Secaucus because the town doesn’t want there to be too many.
“The Board of Health in their meeting had asked for this ordinance because they didn’t want the vape businesses to keep expanding,” Jeffas said. “They wanted to have a limitation so the town wouldn’t be overrun by them. So that was one of their pressing goals.”