The City of Hampton's Planning Commission meeting for the month of December Two thousand twenty-five will now come to order.

Madam Clerk, can you call the role, please?

Commissioner Griffith.

Commissioner Muggler.

Present.

Commissioner De Profio.

Chair Harris.

Move approval of the November twenty twenty-five minutes with amendments.

Any comments by the commissioners.

I Commissioner Brooks.

I Commissioner Coleman.

I Commissioner Muggler.

Thank you.

I will first read the public hearing protocol.

The Planning Commission of the City of Hampton takes pride in being fair and courteous to all parties in attendance.

It's important that all involved understand how the commission conducts its hearings and how all persons before the commission should conduct themselves.

Individuals other than the applicant or their representative who have signed up to comment on the case will have three minutes to present their comments.

All comments must be directed to the commission.

No person may address the commission until he or she is called by the chair.

Speakers must remain at the podium or microphone while addressing the commission.

Speakers who have signed up may not donate their time to other speakers.

And please note that unless otherwise stated, the actions taken by the commission today are in the form of a recommendation to the Hampton City Council.

The final decision to approve or disapprove an application will be made by the city council at a future date.

Chapter 3, Section 3 2 entitled Table of Uses Permitted to add Smoke or Vape Shop to the Use Table.

Chapter 3, Section 3 3 entitled Additional Standards on Uses to add Additional Standards for Smoke or Vape Shop.

And Chapter 11, Section 11 2, entitled Parking Spaces Required to add Smoke or Vape Shop to the Parking Table.

Here to present on behalf of staff as zoning administrator Melvion Fulgrim.

Good afternoon, Chairman of the Board, Vice Chair, members of the body, director of community development, legal counsel, staff, citizens, and guests.

My name is Melville Pogum, and I am the current zone administrator for the city of Hampton.

The item that I will be bringing before the body is a proposed zoning ordinance amendment for smoke or vape shops, number 25-037.

This will affect chapters 2, 3, and 11 to modify or to define the permitted use of smoke and vape shops here in the city of Hampton.

The retail sales general use category is an overarching classification that currently includes multiple uses such as smoke and vape shops.

These stores typically are medium to small and serve walk-in customers.

Just some ideas of what those services look like.

Regulating them helps to ensure compatibility and surrounding residential residential, commercial, or mixed use areas.

The current proposal would align with the state statute that regulates tobacco product sales, which leads us to 15.2-912.4, the regulation of tobacco and hemp product sales, resale sales locations.

This statute is used to identify what type of retail products can be sold, the areas of where they can be sold as far as location and proximity to child care centers and public, private, and parochial schools.

On this page here, this is a comparison model of some of the research that we conducted with other localities that currently have vape or smoke or smoke or vape shop language amended or adopted into their ordinances.

The table details other localities of their permitting and zoning districts, distance requirements, and permits of approval.

Okay, so just to give you a brief overview of exactly how we're breaking down the definition of vape or smoke shops.

These products include tobacco sales, hemp products meant to be smoked, or other lawful products designed for human smoking or vaping.

This includes what is not limited to electronic smoking or vaping devices, any liquid substances used with them, tobacco products containing nicotine or intended for human use, parts, components, accessories related to smoking or vaping products, whether or not they contain tobacco or nicotine.

A smoke or vape shop does not include any business that holds a Virginia alcohol beverage control license.

An example of businesses that would be affected by this condition would be like a small mama pop store, which would be like a convenience store, who sells smoke or vape uh products as defined in the amendment.

However, our larger chain businesses such as 7-Eleven, Walmart, or Kroger, who have who hold a alcohol beverage license from the department from Virginia would not be affected by this amendment.

Furthermore, in preparation for future legislation that could impact the state of Virginia, we've added an addendum that includes retail, marijuana, and product sales.

So if the sale of retail marijuana or marijuana products becomes legal in Virginia, a smoke or vape shop may sell those products only if they receive a use permit or amend the use permit, specifically allowing marijuana sales or marijuana sale of products at that location.

The business must also comply with all other applicable laws and regulations, including those issued by the state and by the state agency authorized to regulate retail marijuana sales or retail marijuana products, existing smoke or vape shops, including those with legal non-conforming statuses and any other businesses may not sell retail marijuana or retail marijuana products unless they first require, excuse me, obtain a required use permit or amend the use permit authorized for such sale.

Moving forward to chapter three, which is our use table chapter, uh, we are hoping to include the actual term of smoke or vape shop to our category.

This would permit smoke or vape shops in the general commercial C3 district, subject to additional standards and approved use permit from the city of Hampson's Hampton City Council.

This here is our current diagram of our existing use permit table.

The item here in the category shown in red is the addition of smoke or vape shop in our category.

And if you scroll over to the red C3, it's going to require a C a use permit which will go before the board for review, and it will also be required to follow the section 3-357, which will be the supplemental standards for that ordinance section.

Okay.

All right, so within chapter three, in addition to approving the use the category of defining intern, we also wanted to include some additional standards and regulations for smoke or vape shops.

Those regulations or additional standards would require the smoke or vape shop to be a minimum distance from any school or daycare, establish a minimum distance requirement between smoke shops, smoke or vape shops, regulate the hours of operation, and require additional operational standards and characteristics.

So here on this um cat on this form or on this chart, we've kind of broken down exactly what we put um in written terms and outlined it out.

So the 9 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

This is the hours that we're proposing to restrict the use of smoke or vape shops for establishments.