Vapes, bongs and sneakers: How and where e-cigarettes are sold have parents alarmed and Chicago looking at new restrictions

Kim McAuliffe was glancing out the window of her favorite restaurant on the Far Northwest Side when she noticed an unfamiliar banner reading: “Smokes N Kicks.”

Hanging above a storefront on Northwest Highway in Edison Park, the canvas was emblazoned with an illustration of a hookah instrument wrapped around a pair of red-and-white Nike flattop gym shoes as smoke billows in the background. A bullet-point list advertised the sale of footwear, vapes and more. Inside were rows of designer shoes, a mural of the Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan and shimmering glass bongs resting on a counter.

“My kid was talking about wanting to go into the store so he can look at a pair of Yeezys,” McAuliffe said in an interview that took place before Adidas broke with Kanye West and his once-coveted footwear line over his anti-Semitic comments.

“Fundamentally, I do not support or think it should be allowed for a business to market dangerous, addictive, life-threatening products to children, luring them in with high-end, very hard-to-get designer fashion and gym shoes.”

McAuliffe later spearheaded an online petition against the business, which appeared to be closed to the public on a recent visit and whose owner could not be reached for comment. McAuliffe said she and neighbors are fed up with what they view as an unfettered encroachment of smoke stores in their close-knit community.

That’s why she supports a proposed ordinance from 41st Ward Ald. Anthony Napolitano to give City Council the authority to place moratoriums in specified areas on future tobacco retail licenses, which are required in Chicago to sell cigarettes, vapes and other smoke products.

“As legislators, we should probably write something to protect communities from (having) every other storefront being a tobacco shop or a vape shop,” Napolitano said. “The way vape is affecting our kids right now, I’m getting calls from probably every school in my ward that vape is out of control.”

If passed, the ordinance would be the latest move by Chicago government to crack down on electronic cigarettes, which have lately been a target of a broad coalition of aldermen and Mayor Lori Lightfoot alike. Supporters of restricting vapes say the products have spurred a public health crisis among teenagers as they cycle through the pen-shaped devices at dizzying paces.

Since 2014, e-cigarettes have been the most common tobacco products used by middle and high school students, who particularly favor the flavored kind, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A study released in October by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, based on a large-scale youth survey, found 14% of high school students and more than 3% of middle school children reported vaping in the last 30 days.

But according to those working in vape shops, their products have helped many adults quit traditional cigarettes, and existing constraints have failed to keep the electronic ones out of children’s hands. Owners who spoke with the Tribune said they opposed the potential new law, arguing it would further hurt small businesses without making a dent in preventing youth addiction.

Lightfoot’s administration has gone after vaping manufacturer and retailers in multiple lawsuits since she took office, alleging deceptive advertising to young people and underage sales. She has said she is working with Napolitano on a final version of the moratorium ordinance that would empower communities that do not want the shops.

“There are great concerns among a range of aldermen across the city about the sale of tobacco, the sale of so-called ‘loosies’ (cigarettes sold individually) and also, obviously, vaping,” Lightfoot said. “We I think are all united in our concern about the highly addictive power of vaping, particularly when it comes to our young people.”

The impact of Chicago’s 2020 ban on all flavored vapes has been noticeable at Lucky Smoke Shop on Chicago’s Northwest Side. Ever since then, countless e-cigarette users have left to cross the city border a couple blocks north in search of sweeter-tasting vape products, said the manager, who identified herself as Nicole.

“It just rots on the shelf,” Nicole said about the small pile of disposable tobacco vape pens that remains. “Money went way down. But guess what? They went to the suburbs, so it didn’t affect the consumer at all.”

In Illinois, sale of tobacco and e-cigarettes is prohibited to those under 21, but Nicole said many teens have told her they often don’t get carded in the suburbs — which largely don’t have bans on flavored vapes. Elsewhere in the U.S., at least five states have passed laws prohibiting the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, while the FDA has been gradually ramping up regulations on those manufacturers for years now.

Multiple smoke shop owners who spoke with the Tribune all agreed teenage vape use is a serious concern. But they argued that Chicago’s existing restrictions are cumbersome with nothing to show for it, and Napolitano’s ordinance would be no different.

Nabeel Ismael said he started smoking cigarettes at 15. Now, as the owner of Kazzaz Smoke Shop near the city’s Park Ridge border, he only vapes nicotine and does not carry cigarettes in his store. He doesn’t think it’s fair for the city to pass laws essentially reining in all smoke shops over what he believes are a small subset of bad actors selling to minors.

“To restrict licensing, I’d say, is pushing a little bit too far,” Ismael said. “The way that I look at it, … if we’re going to crack down on smoke shops, there’s a lot of other things we have to crack down on as well, as far as underage sales.”

Gregory Conley, director of legislative affairs at the American Vapor Manufacturers Association, suggested vape products are already so regulated in Chicago that smoke stores aren’t relying on them for profit anymore and have pivoted to cannabis accessories and hemp-related products.

“Chicago’s vape-specific flavor ban and local excise tax have already pushed sales of vaping products to unlicensed retailers,” Conley wrote in a statement. “Forcing people to go to the illicit market to find safer alternatives to cigarettes is absurd and dangerous, but that’s the decision Chicago made when it decided to politicize public health and oppose harm reduction.”

For Edison Park mother Elizabeth, who declined to use her last name out of privacy concerns, a yearslong nightmare began when she saw her son slip inside his closet before a family dinner the beginning of his freshman year in high school. Puzzled, she walked in and caught him putting a vape inside a box.

Since then, her son’s progress with overcoming his addiction to nicotine has ebbed and flowed, Elizabeth said. Right now he is off it, but his mother said it’s difficult to unwind and rejoice when she’s always bracing for his next coughing fit — an ominous sign that he could be back on the vape.

“We just started high school, and we’re dealing with this,” said Elizabeth, whose daughter also struggled with frequent vaping. “It felt like we failed as parents. … It definitely put a wedge in our relationship for a long time. Lots of therapy, lots of trust issues that still kind of linger.”

Elizabeth described her children as rule-followers, but the vaping craze sweeping their peers proved irresistible. At one point, both of them had to be evaluated at the hospital because of severe headache and stomach issues, she said.

Now, any vape store she sees near her home appears both a “big shiny gem” meant to entice children and “trashy” at the same time, Elizabeth said. She supports Napolitano’s proposed ordinance and hopes her neighborhood is the first to instill a moratorium.

“Teenagers think they’re invincible, so they don’t really get it,” she said.

It’s too soon to know what the long-term effects of vape use will be, though vape clouds do lack the harmful tar of a traditional cigarette. However, liquid nicotine chemicals can still damage the heart and other organs, research suggests. And in 2019, the U.S. saw a spate of hospitalizations concerning a respiratory illness that the CDC partially connected to bootleg nicotine and cannabis e-cigarettes.

For Edison Park father Shay Boyle, the toll of teen vaping is evident at Notre Dame College Prep, a Catholic school in Niles where he serves as president. He’s seen promising students get expelled or lose scholarships after sneaking in or selling the products on campus, he said.

Even more disheartening is the explanation many would provide: “‘I’m addicted to these things. I need to do it during school. I need to run to the bathroom and vape between classes,’” Boyle quoted.

“This is the addiction level that some kids have,” Boyle said. “It’s so easy to do. You guys can do it and blow the smoke down their sleeve, and nobody’s the wiser.”

Boyle said it’s important for Napolitano’s ordinance to pass, as he believes that within his community there is universal opposition to any additional vape shops. He argued the mere presence of their smoke-themed signs and intricate storefront displays normalizes the idea among children that tobacco products are not harmful.

“I think that’d be a big win for the city of Chicago and a big win for our neighborhood,” Boyle said. “I’ve seen the damage to these things do and I can’t sit idly by. … If we don’t do something now, there’s no end to it. There’ll be one on every corner.”

ayin@chicagotribune.com