Look at your lawn. If it’s thick, green and vigorous, the grass crowds out the weeds, but if it’s slow growing and the grass thins out, weeds rapidly fill in the open spaces. Vape shops are like weeds. If a town is growing and vigorous, with new business welcome and local business well supported, you won’t see many vape shops, maybe none, but if store fronts are empty and the town slows down, vape shops, like dandelions and crab grass, pop up to fill in the gaps. If you don’t want vape shops all over, we need to fill up those store fronts with something better.
There was a big turnout at the zoning hearing with residents ready to oppose the proposed vape shop/smoke shop in the old Rite Aid building, which was denied by the zoning hearing board, but how many attempts have there been to fill that building or any of the other empty store fronts with something else? Ideas for startups in North East cluster around the same things we already have and don’t need any more of, instead of trying something new.
The out of town investor that has purchased a number of buildings has yet to move forward with or disclose any plans for what she intends, though the Evandale Farm location seems to be moving in the right direction. Will that eventually result in something happening downtown? Rumors abound, but, so far, it appears to be going nowhere.
I’ll suggest some ideas in future articles, but it would be great if everyone could start re-imagining what North East could be and how some of our present buildings and resources might be repurposed. Be creative, but be serious. What can we do to get things moving, so North East turns into that healthy, vigorous, fast growing lawn without weeds, so we don’t have to focus on vape shops, or any other fast spreading, invasive business.