“There’s already a significant number of vape shops in our town centre and there’s another one coming,” she said at the March meeting of the Wexford Borough. “I don’t necessarily have anything against vape shops, this is about having the centre of our town as a shopping street with a diverse array of retailers.
“If there’s nothing in our planning legislation around this then we need to look at implementing new bye-laws.”
Noting that Wexford was one of the few town centres nationwide which has not been significantly redesigned, Cllr Walsh said that unless efforts were made to preserve what remained of North and South Main St, their very essence would be lost.
“We need to ask ourselves what purpose our main street serves. We need to do everything in our power to keep it as it is, to attract visitors and allow people to walk down the town and do all the shopping they need to do in one place.”
Her comments come following a garda raid on the Candy Cloud shop on North Main Street last month. The raid was carried out on the suspicion that the shop had been selling illegal cannabis-related products, alongside vapes and American candy, and saw gardaí seize a number of items which were subsequently sent to labs for analysis.
Cllr Walsh received the unequivocal support of her colleagues with Cllr Leonard Kelly suggesting there may be a way to preserve the rich history of Wexford’s town centre.
“If we were to designate Wexford as a heritage town would it make a difference?” he asked senior planner Graeme Hunt. “Would that give us the opportunity to limit certain types of shops?”
The new Candy Cloud vape shop in North Main Street in Wexford town. Pic: Jim Campbell
However, according to Mr Hunt, there is little Wexford County Council can currently do to prevent more vape shops from opening up.
“Vape shops are regarded as a retail use so they don’t require additional planning permission,” he said. “But I will enquire about the possibility of designating Wexford as a heritage town to see if that might make a difference.”
The option of altering the county development plan (CDP), as proposed by Cllr Robbie Staples, proved a dead end too.
“The CDP details the different types of retail activity permitted in the town centres,” said Mr Hunt. “Vape shops would probably fall under the category of convenience and it’s very difficult to distinguish between the different types of retailers in any way.”
With Cllr Kelly raising the possibility of creating an architectural conservation area in the centre of town, Cllr Tom Forde offered a sliver of hope for those who wished to see a return to times past.
“I queried this before and was told that there is legislation coming into force soon regarding the licensing of these shops and that the HSE will be involved in that,” he said.
Insisting that her primary aim was to see a healthy mixture of businesses in the town centre, Cllr Walsh said the current layout of retailers and the proximity of existing vape shops to one another was creating a range of issues.
“If you look at the night-time economy in Wexford, some of these vape shops are open into the middle of the night, until 2-3 a.m. There’s going to be consequences from this, of all sorts, and ghettoising these areas is going to bring more businesses of this type into them.
“That’s fine, we’re an open economy, but we need to try and spread these shops around, that would be better for everyone, for society and the wider community.”
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.