A combination of ever-mounting regulations from the state and federal level, barrages of anti-vaping advertisements and complications from suppliers could cost local owners like Tyler Winter their livelihoods.

For Winter, it started as an addiction he reined in through the alternative about seven years ago.

A smoker since age 15, Winter, now 30, tried vaping after his favorite cigarette brand, Marlboro Menthol 72s, was discontinued.

Not long after, he noticed that he could taste food again, didn’t have a smoker’s cough and felt like he could breathe more freely. That comparably healthy feel is what may have hooked him, and something he takes to heart more than anything critics will say.

-Messenger photo by Elijah Decious
Vape mods can change the strength of the vapor produced, which can linger with a fog machine-esque effect.

But if looming regulations from the Food and Drug Administration put him out of business in a couple months, he fears that many vapers like him would go back to cigarettes — or worse, to the black market.

“That would be a bad thing,” he said, concerned about how the conversation on vaping has been framed to the malign of business owners who he said have regulated themselves to reduce harm to others.

As vaping mods saw problems with explosions, manufacturers responded by producing electronic-chip regulated devices to ensure less short-circuiting in the battery-operated devices.

Shops like Trinity Vapes avoided carrying brands like Juul, the manufacturer of pod-based systems criticized for their appeal to teenagers, with easily concealable devices that look like flash drives.

“The whole thing has been self-regulating throughout,” Winter said, from his business’ standpoint.

-Messenger photo by Elijah Decious
Tyler Winter, owner of Trinity Vapes shop in Humboldt, rings up a transaction. A former smoker-turned-vaper, has found more freedom in owning his own business.

While conceding that “nothing is as good as oxygen,” the owner insists that vaping is a harm-reductive alternative, confident that science will be on his side after the studies come back.

Without legal vape shops, the reasoning goes that vapers would be forced to mix their own nicotine liquid in a dangerously unregulated setting or try black market cartridges that were linked to an epidemic of severe lung injuries, particularly in teenagers.

Harm reduction, what Winter says the conversation on vaping should be about as some critics claim the high-tech habit is worse than the combustible tobacco, has been lost in the shuffle.

Several years ago, businesses like Trinity Vapes in Humboldt and River City Vape in Fort Dodge started going up as entrepreneurs found an opportunity with low overhead and an affordable entry point for investment. With about $3,000, Winter started his own shop on 10th Avenue North with a small display case, a variety of “juice” options — the nicotine liquid users put into their modules to vape — and a modest array of devices for those looking to quit cigarettes.

Winter said that though he’s had to send away a few new customers since new federal law in January changed the nicotine purchase age from 18 to 21. Most of his customers are former smokers between the age of 21 and 35.

As critics say that vape companies target minors, Winter said he’s watched products evolve over the last several years to get away from kid-appealing packaging that’s now much more generic.

All of his customers are required to show identification, which he scans with an FDA app on his phone to verify the age.

And while the rainbow of flavor options are part of what he says keeps him in business — because “adults like flavors, too” — he doesn’t think that’s reason alone to put the smoking alternative out of business. The Humboldt shop’s most popular flavor is Sour Rain, comparable to Skittles candy.

After startup costs from buying a device, smokers can find themselves saving a significant amount of money, too. A $10-20 bottle of juice would last a pack-a-day smoker at least a week — saving about $40-70 based on the range of cigarette prices.

“You don’t hear (critics) complaining that the alcohol industry has blueberry-flavored vodka,” he said. “How is that acceptable but we can’t have our flavoring?”

COVID-19 has affected this business, too. Shops have reported struggles to get Chinese-manufactured goods shipped in during the coronavirus outbreak. China was hit particularly hard by the pandemic.

“The industry has come to a halt,” said Aquib Ali, owner of World Liquor & Tobacco + Vapors, a Fort Dodge convenience store that ventured into vaping as it became popular. “The manufactured products are not coming in because of COVID-19.”

Combined with threats to the juice that make up the majority of vape business revenue, these trends spell trouble for business owners.

Manufacturers of juice need to have pre-market tobacco applications approved by May, or face a ban from the market altogether. Winter said that unless the FDA reforms the process for addressing the backlog of applications, he could go out of business. Only a few varieties of the hundreds available have been approved so far.

“It’s either going to be a complete ban, or reform will happen,” Winter said. “It could go either way.”