Baltimore City Council Moves to Crack Down on Illegal Smoke Shop Sales

Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen is pushing legislation that would give Baltimore Police the power to padlock smoke shops caught making illegal sales, calling the proliferation of such businesses across the city "a public health emergency."

Cohen and Councilman Antonio Glover, who represents District 13 in east Baltimore, brought the proposal to a Legislative Investigations Committee hearing Thursday, March 19, where council members questioned officials from the Baltimore Police Department, the Baltimore City Health Department, and the Baltimore City Sheriff's Office about their capacity to enforce existing law. What emerged was a stark picture of understaffing: the Health Department's entire citation-writing operation consists of one officer, who issued just under 200 citations last year to businesses for selling tobacco products to minors. The Health Department said it is budgeting to add two new positions.

"Part of the challenge is that many of the agencies that are tasked with going after these illegal bad actors are deeply understaffed," Cohen said.

The scale of the problem dwarfs that enforcement capacity. The city counts at least 1,200 smoke shops in Baltimore, with the highest concentration in low-income areas. Cohen said inspections have found shops selling unlicensed and unregistered cannabis products alongside flavored vapes, which are illegal. Glover said his east Baltimore constituents have reported children getting sick after obtaining illegal products from smoke shops, and both council members said they have heard reports of some products being laced with fentanyl or other toxic substances.

"Our children should not be exposed to these toxic chemicals," Cohen said. "This is a massive problem for the city. It is proliferating at a fast clip, and we have to get our arms around it."

Glover said he and other council members have been conducting store-by-store compliance checks. "Not just that, we've been also going from store to store, making sure these stores are in compliance with the law, and a lot of them are out of compliance," he said. "We've also witnessed young people coming in and out of establishments as well."

Beyond the padlocking bill, several additional measures remain before the council. A three-part legislative package introduced in October 2025 by Council Members Tony Glover, Zac Blanchard, and Jermaine Jones has not yet been voted on. That package includes the Smoke Shop Use Standards Bill, which would formally define a smoke shop as any retail establishment devoting at least 10 percent of its floor area to tobacco products, vaping devices, or cannabis-related paraphernalia. The bill would ban such shops from operating within 500 feet of schools, recreation centers, or parks, and within 1,500 feet of another smoke shop. A companion measure, the Display Luminance Bill introduced by Jones, would cap how bright window displays and retail lighting can appear from public streets, with the stated goal of reducing marketing visible to minors and limiting distractions for drivers.

A separate criminal case underscored the public safety dimension. Police executed a search warrant at a smoke shop after a man was observed selling suspected cannabis from within the store; he was subsequently charged with controlled dangerous substance and firearms-related offenses.

The smoke shop issue also surfaced at a Federal Hill community town hall the day before the Legislative Investigations Committee hearing, signaling that pressure on council members is coming from multiple neighborhoods simultaneously. No vote on the padlocking bill has been scheduled, but Cohen made clear the council intends to move: "This hearing is about getting a deep understanding of the scope of the problem, as well as the resources that we have at our disposal to address it.