Those looking to purchase vape products in Elmore County will soon see changes.
Some municipalities are in various states of declaring a temporary moratorium on new vape shops. And Gov. Kay Ivey recently signed a bill limiting where many of the products can be sold.
At last Tuesday’s Millbrook City Council meeting, leaders approved a one year moratorium on convenience stores, vapes shops, gas stations and package stores in the corporate limits and police jurisdiction of the City of Millbrook. It follows similar moratoriums in the cities of Prattville and Pike Road.
“It got me to thinking, ‘If those cities are pushing them away, they might look this way,’” Millbrook Mayor Al Kelley said. “We need to possibly stop it before it gets bigger.”
Kelley said two to three stores in this class have recently been approved by Millbrook planning and the council and will be allowed to continue to open.
“This moratorium is for new proposals,” Kelley said. “I have nothing against convenience stores. I stop at them on a regular basis. It’s the vape products and the way they are being marketed. That is what I’m concerned about.”
The Millbrook moratorium gives city leaders a chance to complete studies already in progress of the development of downtown along Main Street and around Village Green.
“We have three or four here now,” Kelley said. “We don’t want anything new like that until we figure out what our downtown will look like through zoning and such. We don’t want a bunch of them down here.”
City of Wetumpka leaders are also considering a similar moratorium.
Ivey recently signed House Bill 8, which covers legal issues surrounding hemp products and greatly governs vape products.
Starting June 1, convenience stores throughout Alabama will only be allowed to sell just 34 tobacco and menthol-flavored e-cigarette products approved by the FDA. All other flavors, including those currently under review by the FDA, will be banned from sale except in age-restricted vape shops where only those 21 and over can enter. It also leaves open their sale in package stores where those under 21 cannot enter.
