San José Could Temporarily Ban Smoke Shops, Citing Health Inequities

San José is taking an initial step toward temporarily banning all new smoke shops, as city leaders hope to redistribute the concentration of such businesses across the city.

District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz proposed a temporary moratorium on smoke shops to the City Council’s rules committee on Wednesday. Ortiz championed the idea in response to a new county report showing that predominantly Latino areas of the city are heavily saturated with the businesses.

“People have been waiting long enough for health justice, and so we’re taking action now,” Ortiz said Wednesday outside City Hall.

While Latinos make up about one in every four residents across Santa Clara County, in the southern portions of the county and in East San José, Latinos account for nearly half of the population.

Santa Clara County’s recently released 2025 Latino Health Assessment — the first comprehensive county analysis of Latino living conditions and outcomes in more than a decade — found that tobacco retailers are more than twice as common in East San José, with nearly seven retailers per square mile, compared to three in the county overall.

“Studies have shown that tobacco and alcohol retailers cluster in low-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods that predominantly house residents of color,” the assessment report said. “Living near a large number of alcohol and tobacco retailers increases the risk of drinking and smoking and makes it harder to quit these behaviors.”

The assessment also said that neighborhoods with a higher density of alcohol and tobacco retailers have higher rates of assault, injuries and collisions between cars and pedestrians.

“These businesses are making it easier for children to access tobacco and vaping products before they even understand the risk,” Pastor Danny Sanchez said Wednesday during a press conference outside City Hall. “In East San José, it’s not uncommon to find two or three smoke shops within a few blocks of a school, but if you go to Los Gatos or Almaden Valley, it is not the same pattern.”

Ortiz, who represents a portion of East San José, told KQED he is “pro-business,” and expects any such moratorium wouldn’t need to be in place for more than a year, while the city works to formulate new regulations and programs around how and where tobacco or smoke shops are allowed to open.

“There’s not a lack of smoke shops on the East Side or throughout the city of San José,” Ortiz said. “You’re advertising and selling products that will result in health problems to our community, and you’re making money off that. And so we need to have leaders that are willing to stand up to greed and advocate for the health outcomes of our community.”

The rules committee asked city staff Wednesday to create an estimate of how much work it would take to craft such a moratorium and other policies to control smoke shops, which the committee will consider on June 11. At that meeting, the committee could also make more specific policy recommendations regarding the moratorium to be reviewed later by the full city council.

Darcie Green, executive director of health nonprofit Latinas Contra Cancer, was on the steering committee for the county’s report, which she said affirmed much of what Latinos in East San José already knew anecdotally about health, education and opportunities for communities of color and immigrants.

She said the call for the moratorium isn’t just about opposing smoke shops, but advocating in favor of healthier environments for everyone.

“This moratorium gives us the breathing room to reimagine East San José, not as a place saturated with harm, but as a model of health, justice and care,” she said Wednesday at City Hall.

“We deserve to regularly assess the health and quality of life of places where we live, work and play, and to reclaim the right to design our surroundings based on what we know, what we value, and what we envision for our own future,” Green added.

The city already has regulations in place for where cannabis dispensaries can operate and how many of them are allowed in a given area — rules which the council softened in 2023. San José also requires retailers to obtain a retail license from the city to sell tobacco products and bans the sale of flavored tobacco and vapes.

But some businesses, Ortiz contended, set up as “smoke shops” that don’t sell tobacco, and therefore don’t need a license.

“And they’re not necessarily selling tobacco, but they’re selling paraphernalia. And then they’re sending cannabis and mushrooms under the table,” Ortiz said, adding that these loopholes circumvent city efforts to reduce clustering of such shops and to combat illegal sales of drugs.

“So we need to make sure that there is an analysis by city staff and then a response through policy,” Ortiz said.

The Latino Health Assessment also shows that the community is disproportionately hindered by violence, access to healthcare, social determinants of health such as lower incomes, housing stability and faces increased mental health challenges and systematic barriers, disproportionately hinders the community when compared to the general population.