SOUTHLAND – (INT) - Tobacco shops, also known as smoke shops, may represent potential “nuisance properties” in urban communities of color, a study led by a researcher at the University of California, Riverside has found.

Nuisance properties – motels, payday lenders, and vacant homes and lots – are properties where unsafe activities affecting public health and safety occur repeatedly.

The study, which appears in Preventive Medicine, focused on 2014 violent and property crime data from South Los Angeles, a large urban community where the homicide rate is nearly four times the national rate.

The study also looked for associations between medical marijuana dispensaries and crime in South Los Angeles. The researchers found that these dispensaries were not linked to greater violent crime around their locations.

“We know alcohol outlets can be associated with unsafe nuisance activities in urban areas, but this study appears to be the first to suggest U.S. tobacco shops may also impact public health,” said Andrew Subica, Ph.D., an assistant professor of social medicine, population, and public health in the UC Riverside School of Medicine.

Story Date: January 13, 2018