Most Porirua locals who spoke to 1News say they support the Government's proposal to restrict the proximity of new specialist vape shops to schools and sports grounds to prevent harm to young people.
Some people said it was a "good idea" that "has to happen" as there's already enough vape shops in communities.
One woman told 1News she supported the move and was saddened to see children she estimated to be 10 and 12 years old vaping – well below the legal age of 18 and above.
Another man said everything, including vapes shops, have a place in communities, but he wasn't sure about the proposed measure.
The proposal is part of the Ministry of Health's Smoked Tobacco Regulatory Regime, which the public can give feedback on until 5pm on March 15.
The ministry says it's responding to a rise in youth vaping and concerns about the appeal of products and their safety.
"The proposals are not intended to restrict access or availability to vaping products to people who wish to stop smoking and switch to a less harmful product," the ministry states.
A Porirua vape shop located opposite a primary school has drawn concern from some members of the community.
Vapelicious owner Shaival Arora said the location is not ideal but with an ongoing lease, he changed his convenience store to a vape shop after Porirua City Council removed carparks outside the shop, leaving the dairy business financially unviable.
"If I was supposed to be opening a brand-new site I would never," he said.
"However, this was sort of like a death scenario where we are stuck with the business and we opposed the layout change, but it went on deaf ears – no one listened to us."
Arora said he communicated with the school about the situation and decided against reopening a dairy with a specialist vape section combined, which some businesses are doing, as morally that didn't sit right with him.
"It's a grey area in the law at the moment where a vape store is supposed to be an R18 site however a dairy store is not, so a lot of dairy store owners put an R18 sign, let the kids in and then their dairy store has a small section of it that says it's a vape store," he said.
Arora denied the store was causing harm to children and said he had a range of measures in place to prevent this.
"Cause harm to the kids directly? Not really. More or less all the kids these days who are aware of vaping are aware of them because they've seen adults or other people vaping it.
"If anything, we are doing our part in stopping anyone underage buying anything from here and that's what we're trying to make sure of."
Restricting vape store locations, flavours and strength are all on the table.
People attempting to buy products for underage users are blacklisted, he said, and the shop doesn't open until 10am and shuts from 2.30pm for around an hour to prevent students being attracted to the store.
"This is just making sure the kids do not get to see our branding and advertisement so we keep the roller doors down until the kids are gone, which is usually around 3.20pm to 3.30pm."
He said the action is a moral obligation due to the store's proximity to the school.
"We need to be doing something to make sure that we are doing our part of the community. Yes, community has been kind enough to let us open here but at the same time what exactly are we doing for the community, not required by the law but this is something we really wanted to do."
Arora said stopping people buying products for younger teenagers was a challenge that required vigilance and was sometimes met with aggression from customers.
"We believe the onus goes back onto these adults as to what they're doing is actually illegal, they shouldn't be doing it – we've pulled up a lot of adults on it."
He's calling for the Ministry of Health to be more involved in the issue and would like to see more done to educate the public.
"We recently contacted MOH myself personally about twice now in regards to getting material...people telling us they're looking at quitting smoking...very hard thing to grab hold of even though it's supposed to be really easy and free."
Arora said he gave up after making calls for a week to try get information resources for the store.
The chief executive for Māori public health group Hāpai Te Hauora Selah Hart said she's concerned vape shops are being saturated and glamorised in communities, giving the example of five vape shops being within walking distance of each other in the Auckland suburb of Glen Innes.
"They were brought in as another alternative, a less harmful product for those that currently smoke, never for those that were non-smokers and that's sort of the worrying trend that we're seeing now," she said.
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