OCALA, FL (352today.com) – Marion County commissioners will take final public comment Monday on a zoning ordinance that would keep new smoke and vape shops, including shops built around kratom, away from schools and other protected places. Ocala Mayor Ben Marciano told city council he wants the city to consider “a similar ordinance.”

The second hearing is Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. in the McPherson Governmental Campus Auditorium, 601 SE 25th Ave., Ocala. The item is File 2026-24336, creating Land Development Code Section 4.3.30, headed “Smoke and Vape Shops.”

A new commercial establishment whose primary use is the on-premises sale and consumption of tobacco, tobacco products, tobacco paraphernalia, e-cigarettes, kratom, or kratom products, including a smoking area, could not be located within 1,500 feet of a school, licensed daycare, church or place of worship, or public park, or within 2,500 feet of another smoke shop.

Grocery and convenience stores that sell those products only as a sideline would be exempt. Shops already open on the effective date that miss the distances would be pre-existing nonconforming uses. Measurement is a straight line from the shop’s nearest building line to the protected property line. A school or park inside Ocala still counts against a shop in unincorporated Marion County. An applicant who cannot meet the buffers could seek a special use permit.

That list is a change from the first hearing on August 26, 2026. The published draft then was tobacco only. At that meeting, Commissioner Michelle Stone asked to insert synthetic kratom. Commissioner Matt McClain said to skip “synthetic” and just write “kratom” so code enforcement does not have to lab-test products, and so a store cannot call itself a kratom shop and dodge the rule.

“I think trying to put ‘synthetic’ in there is going to be an issue. I’m okay with just saying ‘kratom in general’ at smoke shops next to schools. I don’t care if it’s that way. That way we don’t get into this thing of having to have code enforcement go test if this is synthetic or not,” McClain said.

“It’s not banning [kratom],” Stone said.

“Only in these shops next to schools,” McClain said.

The agenda packet attachment for Monday’s meeting follows that direction on including e-cigarettes, kratom, or kratom products. Using “kratom products” tracks Florida’s Kratom Consumer Protection Act, so a seller cannot relabel the same item and claim it is something else.

Outgoing Commission Chair Carl Zalak, III said there is at least one shop in Anthony that already sits too close under the new distances; he hears complaints about it, and there may be others. Those stores would not be forced to close. Subsection C of the draft says any shop already open on the day the ordinance takes effect that cannot meet the 1,500-foot or 2,500-foot buffers is a “pre-existing nonconforming use.” In practice, the county would let that shop keep operating. If it shuts down and later tries to reopen, the new spacing rules would apply.

After the county’s first hearing, Marciano told Ocala City Council he and the police chief would focus on synthetic kratom with the attorney general’s office and would release a video series. “One of the things I want to ask the council to consider: at the last county commission meeting, it was brought up that they want to do an ordinance to ban any additional smoke shops opening within certain distances from schools. I think it’s childcare centers, other facilities,” Marciano said.

He asked council to study buffers like the county’s.

“I’d like to propose that we do a similar ordinance if it’s a zoning thing,” he said. “They’re on every corner.”

“You got to think about who we want to be as a community. I had a lady walk out of a smoke shop the other day, and she says, ‘Mayor, I commend you for working on this.’ She was being honest with me. She goes, ‘I used to go to a drug dealer. Now I just go to the smoke shop,’ and it’s an issue in our community, and we need to address it,” Marciano said.

City Manager Pete Lee said staff can work with City Attorney Will Sexton and bring back an abstract. Councilmember Barry Mansfield agreed they should look into it.

The hearing is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, at 5:30 p.m., at the McPherson Governmental Campus Auditorium. The file can be found here.