Barber-To-Bong Pitch Goes Up In Smoke

Neighbors tired of smoke shops pushed back on a Hill native’s plan to turn a vacant Washington Avenue storefront from a place for cutting hair to a venue for cutting deals on sweatsuits and smoking paraphernalia.

The plan was the subject of a public hearing Tuesday night during the latest monthly online meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals.

Willie Vasquez called in to the Zoom-only meeting to pitch local zoners on a special exception to permit changing the use of 670 Washington Ave. from a barbershop to ​“smoke shop/apparel” in a residential zone.

The BZA didn’t vote on the application at Tuesday’s meeting. It referred the matter to the City Plan Commission for review before taking it back up for deliberations and a potential final vote next month.

Vazquez told the commissioners that he was born and raised in the Hill, and now lives in Hamden. He already runs a smoke and apparel shop called Flamerz at 91 Farren Ave. in the Annex.

He said that the landlord of the building he currently operates out of might be selling the property soon, so he’s been on the lookout for a new home for Flamerz. That’s how he came across the currently vacant storefront that used to house a barbershop at 670 Washington.

He said the apparel sold at the shop would include sweatsuits, shorts, T‑shirts, and backpacks. The ​“smoke shop stuff,” he said, would include bongs and ​“smell-proof items,” among other smoking products.

There will be plenty of signs posted indicating that customers have to be 21 years and older to enter the shop, he promised. There will also be cameras, and customers have to be buzzed in, ​“so there’s no kids able to just walk in.”

Vasquez said he sells clothing not just in the Annex, but also online to customers from as far afield as California. He wants to bring some of that entrepreneurial hustle to his home neighborhood of the Hill, he said. ​“I’m trying to just bring some opportunity to where I was born and raised at.”

Most of the roughly 10 people who called in to Tuesday’s BZA meeting to speak up on Vasquez’s zoning-relief application panned it as bringing an unwanted use to a part of the city already saturated with smoke shops, package stores, and ​“inconvenient” uses.

“Please do not allow another negative smoke shop from opening its doors in our beloved Hill neighborhood,” Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez implored the board. ​“Please support us in the work that we are doing to make our neighborhood a safe place for everyone.”

She and fellow Hill Alders Carmen Rodriguez and Kampton Singh took turns arguing there are too many schools nearby, too many churches nearby, too many playgrounds and parks and homes with young children, to make this a salutary use for 670 Washington.

“We know that smoke shops attract individuals and activities that don’t contribute to the safety and peace of our neighborhood,” said fellow Hill resident Leslie Radcliffe.

“I wish him well,” she said about Vasquez. ​“I just wish him well in another location.”

City Health Director Maritza Bond also called in to criticize Vasquez’s packaging of apparel and smoking products in a single store. ​“While I commend the individual for being an entrepreneur and wanting to sell his clothing line,” she said, ​“the fact that he’s interlinking it with smoking supplies is a testament to what we’re seeing in the community,” which is ​“yet another tactic in targeting our youth” to expose them to something as unhealthy as smoking.

“The Hill is transitioning to become a better neighborhood,” added Hill top cop Sgt. Jasmine Sanders. ​“I’m not against entrepreneurship at all, but that is not the location for a smoke shop.”

The one person who spoke up in support of the application Tuesday night was a Hill resident named Maria Boyd. ​“People smoke all the time,” she said. ​“I’m not saying it’s a good thing,” but it’s a reality. She commended Vasquez’s current shop in the Annex for being firm in requiring that customers show ID to prove they are not underage.

At the end of the public hearing, Vasquez stressed that he is diligent and will not sell smoking goods to anyone under 21 years old.

As for mixing his clothing line with the smoke shop, he said, ​“I’ve been selling clothes since 2005,” and have sold apparel online to customers in California and Florida. ​“I haven’t been in the Hill in seven years, [but] that’s where I was born and raised. I was just thinking of bringing it back to the Hill and showing people how I accomplished something.”

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Vasquez said he hasn’t decided yet whether to continue to try to get BZA approval for his application in the face of such neighborhood critiques.

“I really wasn’t liking the feedback,” he confessed, and now ​“I’m just thinking everything over.”