Riverside police and the City Attorney's Office have closed 17 smoke shops across the city, including nine along the Magnolia corridor, following an enforcement effort by the Riverside Police Department's Vice Unit, the department announced Thursday.
Police said the operations began after a rise in resident complaints and reports of drug activity around some shops. According to the department, several of the businesses drew people involved in ongoing criminal activity, leading to more loitering, disturbances and 911 calls that disrupted nearby homes and businesses.
The Vice Unit said its investigations documented a range of state and city law violations at multiple shops. The department did not specify which violations were found at which locations.
Detectives alleged that shops sold illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia and kratom and 7-OH products, a concentrated kratom-derived substance, along with nitrous oxide sold for the purpose of getting high. Police also said some shops sold nitrous oxide, vapes and THC products to minors, kept firearms and other weapons on site, ran illegal gambling, laundered money or operated without required permits.
Police said the closures were carried out through legal proceedings brought with the City Attorney's Office and were backed by evidence of ongoing criminal conduct. The department did not say how many arrests, if any, were made or when the operations took place.
Several other smoke shops in the city remain under active investigation, according to police.
The closures follow nearly a year of city action on smoke shops. The City Council adopted a moratorium on new tobacco retail permits in September 2025, and in December, police told the Land Use Committee they had seized nearly 5,000 cannabis products, almost 80,000 illegal tobacco units and 535 nitrous oxide tanks from 13 smoke shops during the first eight months of that year.
In July, the council approved permanent zoning rules requiring new smoke shops to be at least 1,000 feet from schools, parks, childcare facilities, places of worship and other smoke shops, and giving existing stores that don't comply two years to relocate or close. A city staff report at the time counted 41 standalone smoke shops in Riverside, 24 of which were believed to be operating without a valid tobacco retail permit or otherwise violating permit rules.
The Magnolia corridor has been a focus of city enforcement this year. In a separate action, the city obtained a court-ordered receivership for the Riverside Inn & Suites, the first of five Magnolia Avenue properties the city has targeted.
On the Magnolia corridor, police said the closed shops were Glass Roots at 10187 Magnolia Ave., Zanga at 10321 Magnolia Ave., Rodeo at 11170 Magnolia Ave., Quality Tobacco at 9627 Magnolia Ave., High Monkey at 9246 Magnolia Ave., Tobacco Island at 6675 Magnolia Ave., and House of Hookah and Top Shelf Smoke Shop, both listed at 10759 Magnolia Ave. Cloudy Smoke Shop 2, at 10197 Hole Ave., was also counted among the corridor closures.
Elsewhere in the city, police listed Platinum Smoke at 3271 Arlington Ave., Iowa Smoke and Vape at 3375 Iowa Ave., Raf's Smoke Shop at 7580 Indiana Ave., Natt's Smoke Shop at 1709 Main St. and 951 Smoke Shop at 8041 Cypress Ave. Three more were on Van Buren Boulevard: Smoke 4 Less/VB Smoke at 5509, Plug Smoke & Co. at 18000 and Heavy Clouds at 19069.
