On Weisestraße, the Vape Shops Are Multiplying Faster Than Opinions
Residents count 14 vape retailers in five blocks and accuse the street of “turning into a fog machine with rent contracts.” The district says it is “monitoring the situation.”
Neighborhood Commerce & Low-Grade Dread Reporter
NEUKÖLLN — On Tuesday morning at 8:47 a.m., Rüya Yilmaz, 39, stopped outside Weisestraße 32 to take a photo of what she described as “the seventh new vape shop since Advent, and I am not even religious.” She was joined by two other residents, who watched a delivery driver wheel in boxes the size of washing machines labeled with cartoon fruit.
“I came to Berlin for air,” Yilmaz said, standing between a Turkish grocer and a storefront offering “Cloud Repairs” and “Disposable Loyalty.” “Now the air comes in flavors. It’s like the city read Walter Benjamin and decided aura should be bubblegum.”
Over five blocks between Hermannstraße and Sonnenallee, The Wedding Times counted 14 vape shops as of Wednesday at 6:12 p.m., not including three Spätis that now feature what one clerk called “a serious vape wall” near the energy drinks. The clustering is so dense that residents have begun giving directions using nicotine landmarks.
“Turn left at the place that smells like peach regret,” said Mehmet Acar, 52, who runs a locksmith at Weisestraße 19 and says he has replaced his window display keys with a single printed sign: Still Not a Vape Shop. “People keep coming in asking if I can ‘unlock a pod.’ I can unlock your door. I cannot unlock your personality.”
The newest entrant, opened last Friday at 10:03 a.m. in the former children’s shoe store at Weisestraße 41, is called VapeHaus Concept and offers what it describes as a “curated inhale experience.” Inside, a minimalist bench faces a ring light, as if the products require emotional support.
Store manager Leon “Lenny” Hartwig, 27, said the street’s saturation is being misunderstood. “This is market demand,” he said, adjusting a lanyard that read Ask Me About Terpenes. “Look, Neukölln is stressed. People need something hard to swallow that still goes down smooth. Also, our margins are… let’s say… penetrating.”
Residents are not only complaining about the smell. Several cited what they called “the disappearance of normal commerce,” a phenomenon likened by one local teacher to “a David Lynch set, but with more LED lighting and less plot.”
At 9:26 p.m. Monday, a building meeting at Weisestraße 27 reportedly devolved into a 40-minute argument about whether the hallway now “tastes like watermelon.” According to minutes shared with this paper, one tenant proposed a rotating schedule for opening windows; another suggested “air-purifying plants with stronger boundaries.” The motion failed after what attendees described as stiff resistance from a resident who vapes indoors “for harm reduction and aesthetics.”
In a written statement emailed at 2:18 p.m. Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Neukölln district office, Jana Krüger, confirmed the district has received 23 complaints since November about “odor nuisance, late-night congregations, and a general sense of being lightly marinated.” Krüger said commercial permits were being issued “within the legal framework” and that the district could not deny a business simply for being “the ninth identical business on one side of the street.”
The spokesperson added that inspectors visited two shops last week for suspected sales to minors. “No decisive findings,” the statement said, while acknowledging the inspections were complicated by “the similarity of the premises and the fact that everyone is named either Leon or Luca.”
Outside a café at Weisestraße 38, retiree Ingrid Baumann, 71, said she has started keeping a handwritten map of the shops, updated every Saturday at 7:30 a.m. “It’s like Foucault’s panopticon, but everyone is watching everyone else exhale,” she said. “I used to worry about rising rents. Now I worry my lungs are subscribing to a service.”
For now, the street continues to thicken. On Thursday at 11:15 a.m., contractors were seen installing ventilation ducts at Weisestraße 24, a location previously occupied by a tax consultant.
A neighbor, who declined to give his name but provided the address Weisestraße 23 and the phrase “please don’t quote me, I’m trying to quit,” summed up the mood: “I’m not saying it’s dystopian. I’m saying if this keeps up, the fog will start paying the rent before we do.”