Five vape shops in Greerton is a cause for concern for some in the township as it is seen as 'not a good look” for the community.

Greerton's Mainstreet manager Mahia Martelli has noticed the increasing number of vape retailers popping up in their area, and says it's led to negative community feedback.

'Three [vape shops] are right across the road from each other basically. So there's one on one side of the road, and then there's two opposite it, and there's two up by the Greerton shopping centre.

'The general public seem to think that a Mainstreet manager or the Greerton Village Association has a lot more power than we actually do. There's been some comments on Facebook about ‘why hasn't Mainstreet Greerton done anything about it?' Well we can't because we don't own any of the buildings here. It's the landlords who are in charge of putting tenants in their properties – not us.”

Community image

Earlier this month Government announced new vape restrictions including banning disposable vapes from August and banning new shops being within 300 metres of schools.

Mahia says the latest two vape shops have popped up in Greerton in the last two weeks. 'It's not a good look for our community and especially because one of the vape shops is right next to Greerton Village School, and one of the vape shops is in a government-owned building, which is the old New Zealand Post building, and I don't think that's a very good look either.

'I'm in a difficult position because I need to support my business community but I also need to think of the community as a whole.” As a mum to teenagers and primary school-aged children, Mahia says: 'I just feel really passionate about not letting our young people get dragged into vaping or smoking, or drinking or anything like that”.

Customer's convenience

Shosha at Greerton has been open for a couple of years, according to the store's Bay of Plenty Regional manager Pranav Malhotra. The Weekend Sun asked if he thinks there are too many vape stores in Greerton. Pranav says: 'I'm not sure what to comment on this one right now because we've already been there for a long time and recently we have also noticed that there are a couple of new vape shops opened over there”.

'We are doing our job to be honest, so we just want to make sure that our customers always get Shosha as a convenience and have the easiest spot to come to.”

Pranav says their customer base are in the 30s age range. 'We do only have loyal and regular customers over there and we don't approach the young market, under 18s, or anything because that's how I was trained and that's how I train everyone.”

The latest vape store to open this week, Just Vape was approved for business prior to the Government's new laws and is within 300 metres of Greerton Village School.

The store's owner Raman Singh has been a vape retailer for five years and says: 'I'm looking at being a good professional vape retailer not an ordinary retailer.”

Raman says he thinks there are too many stores that sell vapes in Greerton such as dairies. 'Every dairy shop in Tauranga has the little vape stalls. They're selling disposables. Disposables are not good.”

Vape bylaws

Mahia thinks vape shops in Greerton should have distance between them. 'If there was a bylaw that had them a bit more spread out with a specific number only allowed in regards to how many people are in a community, but three jammed in one area is not okay in my opinion.

'[and] I would like [vape shops] monitored or enforced in exactly the same way as a liquor licensing certificate or process be put through which is extremely intense.”

The Weekend Sun approached Tauranga City Council with multiple questions asking whether council thinks there needs to be bylaws limiting the number of vape stores in a community and whether tougher processes for selling vapes should be in place.

TCC's strategy and corporate planning manager Jeremy Boase responded: 'Under current legislation, councils can't pass bylaws that would restrict the location of vaping stores. New central government regulation will be coming into force in August”.

Principal speaks out

A Tauranga-based primary school principal is also speaking out, saying she's horrified by how many vape stores are in proximity to their school in Greerton.

Earlier this week, The Weekend Sun was approached with concerns from the community about the number of vape stores in the Greerton area.

Greerton Village School's principal Kimberley Henderson-Ginns is making her stance clear on this situation. 'It's absolutely horrific. We take children in a walking school bus so we can walk our children through the community safely in the afternoon.

'Our walking school bus walks out of our school gate, across the crossing, up to where we drop students off – there are five [vape stores] and that's not including dairies – this is just vape stores.”

Last week the Government announced tighter restrictions on vaping in New Zealand. Among the new rules, disposable vapes are being banned from this coming August and new vape stores will not be permitted within 300 metres of schools. 'We've got really young and impressionable students and I'm totally on board with them being banned from around schools. It's crazy.”

Kimberley says she thinks the number of vape stores in the Greerton community is 'disgraceful”. 'Primary school-aged children are vaping and it's just too readily available. I think it's disgusting. 'We haven't had vaping at our school but they're [students] just exposed to it so parents smoking, older teenaged children, intermediate-aged school kids – they're all vaping.”

She says that the vape stores in Greerton are inviting to look at for kids. 'They're new, they've got different colours, they're appealing and they're appealing to children who walk past them.

'I just think [vapes are] too readily available and I think the names of them and the colours are designed to appeal to young people. When you've got this many shops around a school, which has got 366 kids, it's becoming normalised…I'm really anti them.”

For wider community views on the number of vape stores in Greerton, turn to page 4 of this edition.