Campbell hits the brakes on new tobacco shops

One small West Valley city has some of the most smoke shops per person in Santa Clara County. Officials are taking steps to change that statistic.

The Campbell City Council unanimously approved a temporary ban Tuesday preventing new tobacco retailers from opening in the city for at least 45 days. Officials want to curb tobacco sales in a city with about one tobacco retailer for every 1,000 residents, or 42 in a city of nearly 42,000 people, according to Campbell data. Approximately six shops have opened since 2024, representing a 200% increase in new stores from previous years. Retail locations include standalone smoke shops and liquor and grocery stores.

The temporary ban gives staff time to return to councilmembers with potential updates to Campbell’s tobacco policy promoting health and safety. This includes limiting how close tobacco retailers can be to schools, reducing their number per capita and restricting how many can be near each other. It won’t affect existing shops, but could reduce city revenue. Campbell rakes in about $3,196 annually per standalone smoke shop that sells tobacco products.

Vice Mayor Dan Furtado supports the temporary ban over public health risk concerns, especially when it comes to children vaping.

“Smoking to a degree in the United States has decreased a little bit for adults, (but) there is a corresponding increase in e-cigarettes, people thinking that it’s not (addictive),” he said at the meeting. “There’s breeding (of) a lot of these toxic products and people just don’t realize.”

Campbell, which updated its policy in 2012 to require a permit for all tobacco retailers, is behind other municipalities. Since 2012, neighboring cities, including San Jose and Los Gatos, have implemented policies restricting vaping and flavored tobacco products and limiting retailers in proximity to schools.

San Jose also requires smoke shops to get an additional permit, a policy implemented last year to crack down on the sale of unregulated drugs. Campbell doesn’t have that extra permit requirement. According to city documents, Campbell police inspections recently found tobacco retailers selling illegal products and employing underage workers, along with a lack of proper permits and missing business licenses.

Vanessa Marvin, co-chair of the Tobacco Free Coalition of Santa Clara County, said it’s disconcerting as a mother of a middle school student who hears stories of children vaping in school. She’s somewhat surprised at how many tobacco retailers Campbell has for a small city, adding it’s encouraging to see officials address the problem.

“Campbell has just gotten left behind and so it’s really exciting for Campbell to take this step and catch up to their neighbors,” Marvin told San José Spotlight.

While workers in the industry agree there are problems, they don’t agree the temporary ban is the solution.

Christina Primavera, manager of 420 Lifestyles, said the focus should be on mental health resources that can help residents prevent or fight addictions. She’s glad tobacco products are being filtered out and sold less at smoke shops. The store sells smoking paraphernalia such as pipes and vape cartridges, as well as collectible figurines.

Primavera said as someone who’s seen parents try to buy vape pens for their children, she’d like more emphasis on regulations to ensure tobacco retailers are properly carding customers.

“I would hope to see, rather than continuing to limit the stores, work on the actual root of the problems rather than trying to shove Band-Aids on it,” she told San José Spotlight.

Contact Annalise Freimarck at [email protected] or follow @annalise_ellen on X.