Lower Fairfield County Communities Look to ‘Weed’ Out Vape and Smoke Shops

Nearly 100 vape and smoke shops are in operation across Norwalk, Fairfield, and Bridgeport, with dozens more in other communities. And officials say they’re causing a lot of issues. 

“With the legalization of adult use cannabis in 2021, it took the state of Connecticut by storm, these smoke and vape shop problems,” Norwalk Police Chief Jim Walsh said in January 2026. “We're not the only community, but unfortunately, Norwalk has per capita a very large quantity of vape and smoke shops.” 

Walsh said that the city has “probably 15 to 18 bad actors that we've investigated several times and arrested several times.” 

“The smoke shops have been a significant strain on our resources,” Fairfield Captain Matthew Riendeau told the Planning and Zoning Commission in September. 

Bridgeport Lieutenant Jonathan Duarte said in June that they’ve seen a dramatic rise over the past two years or so—and have made more than 15 arrests during that time. 

“The issues that we've seen over the last year and a half in relation to the smoke shops, is honestly atrocious,” he said. “This is a serious issue. The residents of Bridgeport deserve an opportunity to be safe in their homes and on the streets of the city of Bridgeport.” 

These shops sell a variety of nicotine and tobacco products, smoke-related paraphernalia, vape flavors, and more. None are licensed to sell actual marijuana, which is highly regulated by the state, but law enforcement says that hasn’t stopped many of them from selling cannabis products and selling to minors. 

“Through a lot of our investigations we’re determining that a lot of the high THC products are labeled like candy like Snickers … [which] can be consumed by teenagers and they’re actually consuming a high thc product which can cause health problems and other issues,” Walsh told the City Council’s Ordinance Committee last year. 

Many of these businesses aren’t following zoning rules and regulations laid out by cities causing major problems for law enforcement and city staff.

“We had one open up recently, just no permits—they just opened up, put a sign up and started selling stuff,” Steve Kleppin, Norwalk’s planning and zoning director, told the Ordinance Committee in January 2025. “That’s one where the police went shut them down, and they closed, they reopened up with a new name, so it’s going to be a little bit like whack a mole with these businesses because they’re not following the rules to begin with so no matter what teeth we put in, they’re just going to try to circumvent them at every opportunity.”

Still, Kleppin and others said that some of the recent efforts by local municipalities to crack down on these stores can make an impact.

“Obviously there are going to be people that are playing by the rules and people that are not playing by the rules but the most important thing is that we’re trying to assist the police and the enforcement,” said Brian Candela, Norwalk’s assistant corporation counsel.

Let’s explore how Norwalk, Fairfield, and Bridgeport are working to address these challenges. 

Fairfield: Prohibiting New Shops to Focus on Existing Ones

Of the three communities, Fairfield has the smallest number of existing vape and smoke shops, with officials estimating about eight stores sell these products. Still, law enforcement officials said that’s enough to keep their hands full. 

“The strictly smoke shops are the problem for us,”  Fairfield Captain Matthew Riendeau said. “They don’t comply, they sell to minors regularly, and enforcement seems to not take any effect.” 

That’s why the Fairfield Planning and Zoning Commission voted in September to prohibit new vape and smoke shops from opening. The outright ban follows a year-long moratorium on new shops. 

The zoning regulations specify that this bans stores that have more than 20% of their products as vape or smoke, meaning that a gas station that sells a few products would still be allowed. Riendeau said that those types of stores aren’t usually an issue compared to the larger ones. 

“Without new ones opening up, we’ll be able to manage the situation much better,” he said.  

Bridgeport: One-Year Moratorium to Explore Future Steps

This summer, the Bridgeport Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously approved a one-year moratorium on new vape and smoke shops in the city. 

“This is a matter of public safety, public health, and quality of life issues,” Council member Enedia Martinez said in June. “Compliance checks made last month by the Bridgeport Police Department Narcotics and Vice Division, together with local and state partners, found multiple establishments operating as smoke shops without the proper credentials.”

Martinez noted that “this is also not about isolated bad actors within this industry. It suggests failure in oversight and regulating these establishments. This issue also extends beyond zoning. It is about consumer safety for Bridgeport residents who frequent and support these businesses.”

As of June, officials estimated that there were 47 smoke and vape shops operating in the city, many of which were not following city regulations. 

“These smoke shop issues are issues that the city of Bridgeport has been facing now for several years,” Duarte said. “Most of these locations do not follow both local or state regulations in regards to their licensing or permits.” 

Martinez said she hoped the moratorium would give them some time to put “stronger safeguards” in place. 

“This moratorium should be used to build smarter and stricter regulations for smoke shops,” she said.

Duarte said that the work his team has to do to try and get the smoke shops under control takes away from the “real problems that we're facing in the community because now we have to take resources in a small division like mine and allocate them toward these smoke shops.”

Norwalk: Multi-Pronged Approach to Crack Down on Existing Shops and Limit New Ones

Norwalk officials have spent the past year and a half or so trying to address the growing number of smoke and vape shops in the city. At least 44 were operating as of January 2026, according to Police Chief James Walsh. 

Norwalk’s City Council adopted an ordinance in 2025 that required all shops to apply for a license to sell vape and smoke products. The ordinance outlined penalties, which included a $250 fine for a first offense (such as selling to a minor or selling products like cannabis), a suspension of license for a second offense, and a revocation of their license for a third offense. 

“Our goal here was to help the police,” Candela told the Ordinance Committee in June 2025. “This is about trying to identify a list, on a yearly basis, of those entities that are selling vape products throughout the city and then the police would just have to worry about the ones that are not following the rules.” 

Once the ordinance officially went into effect, one of the biggest issues the Norwalk Police found was that shop owners just weren’t applying for the license. 

Out of the 40+ shops that were required to register once the ordinance went into effect, just 12 did within the first two months. That prompted the council to adopt amendments, which included issuing penalties for failure to apply for a license. 

“The more pressure we can apply to these places, maybe they'll decide to close up shop and go somewhere else,” Candela said in January.

Council member Jalin Sead said that the city needs “all hands on deck,” to tackle this issue. 

At the same time, the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission has been updating its regulations to restrict where vape and smoke shops can operate. The city’s new regulations state that no shop can be located within a mile from another, and also broadens the definition of a vape shop to any shop that sells these products and isn’t regulated in another way, like a gas station. 

Norwalk’s Planning and Zoning Director Steve Kleppin said that these updates will probably make it so there is “no other viable location for any additional tobacco/vape shops to open in the city.”

He noted that this “will not stop the illegal shops from opening but it will allow us to rapidly address these violators.”

The Norwalk Planning and Zoning Commission is meeting on Wednesday, October 7 at 6 p.m. and plans to discuss these tobacco/vape shop regulations.