Employee shot during attempted robbery at central Fresno smoke shop
A smoke shop worker was shot in the upper body after two men demanded money at 3:55 a.m. on East Belmont Avenue. He was taken to the hospital as police searched for the suspects.
A predawn robbery attempt turned violent in central Fresno when a man working at APH Smoke Shop was shot in the upper body just before 4 a.m. Tuesday at 3919 E. Belmont Ave. near Ninth Street. Officers found the employee inside the business and rushed him to the hospital, where he was listed in critical but stable condition.
Police said two men entered the smoke shop, demanded money and one of them fired at the worker during the attempted robbery. The suspects fled on foot, and investigators had not released a description as of the initial reports. Detectives were asking for help from anyone who may have seen the suspects or has surveillance video from the area.
The victim’s age has been described by local outlets as in his 20s, making the shooting more than a property crime call in one of Fresno’s late-night retail corridors. It left a young employee hospitalized and turned an overnight shift at a small storefront into another test of safety along East Belmont Avenue, where businesses often depend on after-hours traffic and a sense that the block is safe enough to stay open.
The shooting also lands in the middle of a wider fight over smoke shops in Fresno. In March 2024, city officials said 31 smoke shops had been inspected under the Cannabis Administrative Prosecution Program, including seven near schools. Investigators said they found illegal cannabis activity, illegal gambling, unpermitted guns and code violations at some of the businesses. At the time, city leaders said Fresno had 125 licensed smoke shops and hundreds more operating without licenses.
That scrutiny intensified in September 2025, when Fresno had more than 120 smoke shops and a city ordinance limiting them to 49 citywide moved forward. Police Chief Mindy Casto called smoke shops a magnet for crime as the city pushed for tighter controls.
Even with that backdrop, Fresno’s overall violent-crime numbers have been moving the other direction. Local reporting in January 2026 said homicides fell to a 51-year low in 2025, and Fresno police said shooting incidents dropped from 221 in 2024 to 162 in 2025. Tuesday’s shooting shows how a single robbery attempt can still jolt a neighborhood, a business type and a night-shift worker who was simply doing his job before sunrise.
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