Mmuds Good afternoon and welcome to Pittsburgh City Council's Cable Cast public hearing for Tuesday, May twenty-sixth, twenty twenty, May twenty-sixth, twenty twenty-six, relative to bill twenty twenty-five, twenty-two-fifty.

I'm Bobby Wilson, the chair of the land use and economic development committee.

And we will begin if the clerk if the clerk please read the bill, and then we'll move to a presentation, and then we'll hear from the speakers.

Bill 2025-2250, ordinance amending the Pittsburgh Code Title IX zoning, Article 5 use regulations, Chapter 911, primary uses to add retail tobacco inhalant and cannabinoids to add specific requirements and conditional use application requirements.

Thank you.

And for the record, we'll join by Councilman America Strasberger.

And then also online, we have Councilman Council President Lavelle.

And as members join, uh I will recognize them.

So let's start out with um City Planning.

I know we have, if you could introduce yourselves, and then we could go to the presentation that you've you provided for us.

Uh so I'll start with introductions.

Um, I'm Carolyn Ristile, the zoning administrator for the city of Pittsburgh.

Um, and with me um uh she's pulling up the presentation is Kate Rickis, uh, one of our senior um planning manager.

Not yes, not senior planning manager on the technical issues this morning or this afternoon, but we'll get there one second, sorry.

Well, this is uh city planning, not innovation and performance.

And I thought I had planned ahead and uh downloaded it, but there you go.

So just so the speakers know, so we have a moment, we'll um move to the speakers that are registered uh after the presentation, and then we will um go to unregistered speakers, and then we'll move the comments for members if members have any comments.

So just bear with us.

Alright, apologies for the delay.

That will let me move forward.

Great.

Uh so thank you for the introduction.

Uh just a quick agenda.

Uh we're just gonna talk about how we got here today, talk about the process on the legislation and uh city planning's uh proposals changed for to the legislative legislation content that we worked on with city council, and then next steps from here.

All right, uh so on April 15th of last year, this council bill 2025 uh 2250 was referred to planning commission for report and recommendation.

Uh and then on April 7th of this year, Planning commission made a positive recommendation to City Council with the following conditions that the legislation be amended by substitute at City Council, and then Planning commission also made a motion for planning staff to follow up with the commission on the legislation within one year.

Uh and then as required by the zoning code, we emailed notice and posted notice of this public hearing 21 days uh before uh the council hearing today.

Alright.

So then the actual process for the legislation, so it was introduced to council, referred to planning commission.

The legislative legislation created a new definition in the primary use section, which related to uh revisions to the I'm on top of it today.

Revisions to the primary use table and added design and operational standards for the restricted goods, personal retail, and that's the definition, but it's what we generally think of as a vape shop.

The city planning highlighted that the proposal could be amended to ensure that we could enforce it, the proposed standards and make sure the language was written clearly and worked on some discussion around what zoning districts that the use should be allowed.

So we worked together with council staff and with the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership to review and revise the proposal.

We collaborated and simplified the definition use table and standards to ensure they are clear and enforceable under zoning.

And then this revised version received a positive recommendation at planning council planning commission to be amended at City Council.

Alright, and then the why about why we're doing this, this is just some general background information.

Again, these are like electronic cigarettes, what we think of as vapes, which contain harmful substances, including nicotine, and per a recent review in Health in Place, vape shops access nodes in the built environment, then increase visibility, accessibility, marketing exposure, and the normalization of vaping behavior, especially among minors and socially vulnerable populations.

And the zoning code doesn't have a current uh doesn't currently have a separate definition for vape shops.

We would just consider them retail sales and surface.

However, many other cities have adopted regulations for these vape shops.

So it is considered a best practice at uh at this point.

Uh and then with a buffer from schools and primary and secondary schools to reduce the likeness, the likeliness of youth exposure and uh possible initiation to vaping.

All right, so we're just gonna walk through what's in the current uh legislation for um uh for the uh retail tobacco inhalant and cannabinoids.

Uh so we amended that to have a broader yet more direct description.

Uh we expanded and clarified the list of products in the in this category.

So we added uh nicotine products in addition to just vape products, and we removed some of the uh shelf space and branding tests that just didn't sort of work for best practices for the way that we would actually regulate and enforce these.

Uh, we also simplified the use table, so this is the zoning districts where it would be allowed.

Um, and so uh right now, the in the way that the bill was originally introduced, it was permitted by right in the urban center mixed use.

Then it was a special exception in the uh local neighborhood commercial, uh neighborhood industrial, general industrial, residential mixed use, riverfront, north shore, and riverfront GI, the general industrial, and then it was a conditional use, and so the conditional use would be a hearing at Planning Commission and City Council in the urban neighborhood commercial, highway commercial, urban industrial, uh urban center employment, golden triangle, uh riv mixed use and riv industrial mixed use.

Uh so really we felt that it made the most sense to have these as a special exception.

So this would be required to have a hearing at the zoning board, and they would have to meet the standards as outlined uh in the use table, but then in these districts uh it would be again permitted with that hearing.

So that's the neighborhood industrial, urban neighborhood commercial, highway commercial, general industrial, urban industrial, UC, urban center mixed use, uh, urban center employment, riv mixed use, riv north shore, riv GI, the general industrial, and riv IMU, the industrial mixed use.

Uh so you'll notice in this second list uh as of right now it's not permitted at all in the golden triangle or what we think of as downtown.

Uh and then we did revise the design and operational standards again just to make sure that it was something that we could uh review and enforce.

All right, uh, and then we revise the definition.

To be uh retail tobacco, inhalant, and cannabinoids.

I'm not going to read this whole thing, but uh you can read it here.

Again, it's uh uh products uh selling products, uh including tobacco, electronic cigarettes, smoking and uh uh inhalation accessories, uh, hemp and other synthetic camonoids, and anything that has the sort of uh psychoactive or euphoric effects.

Um, and then it also includes what the what the business name would be or how they would advertise themselves and their name or trait trade name.

Um, and then all of these for uh meeting the definition are judged on whether it's the principal retail activity.