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Customers Head To NH After Mass. Bans Vaping Products

BOSTON (CBS) – The vaping inventory is coming off the shelves at Two Brothers Smoke and Vape shop in Lowell. The four-month ban announced by Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on Tuesday has hit the 7-month-old business hard where vaping products are nearly 90% of what they sell.

"It was just out of nowhere, boom," said store manager Nelson Ferrer. "We didn't expect it."

Boxes are being loaded for now, hoping the products will still be sellable when the ban is over. Ferrer says isolating Massachusetts business owners won't keep people in the state from buying vaping products.

"New Hampshire is 10 minutes from here. They're going to cross over no matter what. It doesn't make sense to ban here and not everywhere else," said Ferrer.

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Massachusetts stores cannot sell vape products during a 4-month ban. (WBZ-TV)

In fact, Salem, N.H. is about 20 miles away, and customer Zac Medeiros of Massachusetts was at Smoker Choice doing exactly that.

"It forces me to come up here and get products. Prohibition won't do anything, it'll force people to do that," he said.

Smoker Choice store manager Ali Shaikh expects about a 30% bump in business, even as he worries New Hampshire could consider its own ban.

"Anytime something happens in Massachusetts, people get worried. But so far I haven't heard anything like that," he said.

Shaikh says he's already been contacted by Massachusetts vaping distributors about buying their products and expects to hear from individual vape stores as well. It could be an option for Two Brothers in Lowell as they are determined to survive.

"We'll ride the wave. We have to survive. It's a hard hit right now," said Nelson Ferrer.

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