E-cigarette retailer opens ‘vapor lounge’

E-cigarette customers are used to buying the devices at mall kiosks or convenience stores.

But a Cedar Rapids e-cigarette retailer is offering a 'vapor lounge,” providing a different marketplace for electronic cigarette users.

Luke Tschantz, owner of Hawkeye Vapor, 3135 Wiley Blvd. SW, sells a brand of e-cigarettes under the brand name Volcano.

Last summer, Tschantz opened a kiosk shop at Westdale Mall. When the mall closed March 31, he moved just a few hundred yards away to a strip mall location.

Tschantz created a vapor lounge where e-cigarette customers can buy the products and also hang out and 'vape” with friends, inhaling nicotine vapor.

Hawkeye Vapor looks more like a coffee shop with a counter, stools and lounge chairs as well as TV's. Tschantz eventually hopes to sell coffee, soft drinks and sandwiches along with the e-cigarette systems and refills.

Understanding that vapor lounges are a relatively new concept in Iowa, Tschantz is willing to give it time to develop a following. He thinks the growing number of e-cigarette customers might prefer a place of their own to use their vapor systems without fear of disapproval.

'It provides people an opportunity to come in and try different flavors and kind of sit and relax as opposed to the hustle and bustle of a mall,” he said.

Tschantz opened Hawkeye Vapor on April 23, a day before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed new rules to regulate the sale of e-cigarettes nationwide.

The FDA is proposing to ban sales of e-cigarettes to anyone under age 18 and require labeling of ingredients in the liquid nicotine products used to create the vapor that e-cigarette users inhale.

Tschantz said he doesn't have any objection to fair and consistent rules for all e-cigarette retailers. He already 'cards” younger people trying to buy his nicotine products and sells only to adults.

Tschantz said his supplier lists ingredients on labels and will seek FDA labeling approval as soon as the final FDA rules are created.

Tschantz pointed out that tobacco is an $80-billion-a-year business while the most recent sales year for e-cigarettes amounted to only $2 billion dollars. But he believes e-cigarette sales will grow even faster in coming years as more smokers look for an alternative.

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