Hot Vapes joins nearly a dozen e-cigarette “vapor” shops about to open or that have opened in the region in the last two years, with most of those openings occurring in the last six months. Owners of many of those new vapor shops say they too intend to add locations in the region.
Shalash also co-owns Elite Smoke Shop stores in Fairborn, Miamisburg and Cincinnati. He said he has seen popularity of e-cigarettes surge quickly among tobacco smokers, and he is not intimidated by the increasingly saturated vapor-shop market.
“I think the more the better,” Shalash said. He intends to open e-cigarette stores in Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland as well as Dayton, and later in Kentucky and Indiana.
Shalash said he has signed a lease for a 2,000-square-foot space on Springboro Pike. Each of his Dayton-area stores will employ five people, he said.
Hot Vapes started in the Chicago area in 2010 as an internet retailer, expanded into the wholesale end of the business, and opened its first retail store in 2013.
Tobacco-free e-cigarettes are battery-operated devices that heat liquid nicotine and flavors into a vapor that the user inhales.
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