New Planning and Zoning Administrator Nia Holt addressed Council for the first time on Monday, June 1, recommending approval for the smoke shop moratorium. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
Village Council approves smoke shop moratorium
- Published: June 9, 2026
At the group’s most recent regular meeting, Monday, June 1, Village Council unanimously voted to approve a moratorium on any new “smoke shops” from starting a business in Yellow Springs.
Passed as an emergency ordinance and taking effect immediately, the moratorium will last 180 days and stops the issuance of any use, zoning and building permits, as well as certificates of occupancy for new smoke shops.
In the case of this ordinance, the Village defines “smoke shop” as “a retail establishment where 20% or more of floor, shelf or display area is dedicated to the sale of products including tobacco, nicotine, vapes and certain hemp-derived or synthetic cannabinoid products.”
The six existing Yellow Springs businesses that fall within that category can continue their operations; the ordinance applies only to new smoke shops.
Making the case for Council’s passage of the moratorium on Monday evening was the Village’s latest hire: Nia Holt, the new planning and zoning administrator.
Most recently the Community Development Director for Riverside, Holt spoke to Council on her fifth day working for the Village. In picking up where previous administrator Meg Leatherman left off, Holt said the Village recommended Council’s approval of the temporary ban on smoke shops.
“There has been a growing number of these businesses, especially concentrated in certain areas of the village,” Holt said. “This [ordinance] allows staff the time to just pause and review our regulations and the impact [smoke shops] are having on this community. It also allows us to see if we need to put any regulations in place — boundaries for schools, parks, things like that.”
The most recent smoke shop to open its doors was Smoke YS Vape last fall in the 100 block on Corry Street. A few months before, The Joynt moved into the old Import House space along Dayton Street. Both joined an existing set of downtown businesses and convenience stores that sold such products as pipes, vapes and other smoking-related items and combustibles.
Like many other businesses throughout Ohio, these storefronts took a hit earlier this year when Senate Bill 56, which banned the sale and possession of intoxicating hemp products, went into effect in March.
Under that legislation, THC- and CBD-infused seltzers, candies and plant parts can only be sold through licensed dispensaries regulated by the Ohio Division of Cannabis Control. Locally, that resulted in considerable changes on the smoke shop shelves: the BP gas station took away its jar of infused hemp from the check-out counter, The Joynt lost more than 70% of its revenue stream and has since switched to selling mushroom-related products, and Tweedle D’s closed its doors altogether. In past reporting, staffers at the Smoking Octopus told the News that their margins similarly suffered.
With all five Council members expressing support for the moratorium ahead of the vote, their motivations were wide-ranging — some appreciated the effort to curtail any kind of business from clustering in town’s limited commercial space, and others said the ordinance was a step in the right direction from keeping harmful products out of young hands.
“From my own experience and the experiences of friends who have younger and older teenage kids, not all of these businesses have been operating within the parameters of the law — making sure IDs were checked at the door and not selling these products to kids,” Council member Carmen Brown said. “That’s one of the reasons I’m in favor of this.”
Council Vice President Angie Hsu echoed those concerns.
“I’ve heard a lot of interest from the community about this,” she said. “I don’t think this is focusing on any particular business, but the bigger picture and the industry as a whole. We know the vape industry has targeted young people. We know some products are designed to look like candy. … There needs to be protections for kids and young people.”
Council member Senay Semere and Council President Gavin DeVore Leonard considered the economics of the moratorium.
“As I look at it, if there were that many of any kind of business, then it’d get to the point where we’d want to ensure a diversity of business in town,” DeVore Leonard said.
Semere said he didn’t believe that the moratorium was providing any one existing smoke shop a competitive advantage by prohibiting any new competition from setting up nearby, but was a way to “understand what’s happening in the ecosystem and to move forward.”
“Moratoriums are seldom used as permanent bans,” he said. “It’s a pause in an ever-changing environment that allows us to digest what’s happening.”
By a vote of 5-0, the moratorium ordinance passed.
In other Village Council news, June 1—
$281,935 supplement approved
Council unanimously voted to approve a supplemental appropriations ordinance to add $281,925 to the budget.
The majority of those dollars — more than $233,000 —- came from a recent sale of some of the Village’s renewable energy credits, or RECs.
Some of that money has been used to purchase “green” E-RECS, which grants the Village the ability to claim that its energy portfolio is 100% renewable, despite some of the municipal energy being purchased from the open market — which includes nonrenewable energy sources such as coal, gas and nuclear. Additional reporting on the Village’s energy sources can be found in last week’s issue.
Another sizable chunk of the supplemental appropriation — $19,520.64 — comes from a class action settlement.
The Village received two checks totalling that amount through the Public Water Systems Settlement Program that last year reached a $316.5 million settlement with the German chemical company BASF for their firefighting foam products leaching “forever chemicals” in municipal water supplies.
Those chemicals are perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoralkyl substances, or PFAS, and are used in thousands of consumer and commercial products, including firefighting foams, nonstick pans and stain-resistant fabrics. According to the EPA, PFAS in the environment may be linked to harmful health effects in humans and animals.
Per past News reporting, the Village water department is registering well under the EPA’s health advisory limit for PFAs in drinking water at 70 parts per trillion gallons.
The Village regularly detects an average of nine parts per trillion in just one of the four wells along Jacoby Road — “Or nine drops in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools,” new Village Water Superintendent Kevin Martin told the News in March.
Owing to a recent decision to have fewer Village Council meetings this summer, the group will not convene again in June — the regularly scheduled meeting for the third Monday of this month has been canceled. Council’s next meeting will be Monday, July 6, at 6 p.m
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