David Andreatta

@david_andreatta

It all started with too much dog poop on State Street in the village of Pittsford.

A dog care business had opened without a permit in a home there and the fenced-off front yard had become a canine relief station.

That got village trustees talking about what sort of business they wanted to keep off the picturesque main drag and, from there, they settled on six: tattoo parlors, tobacco stores and lounges, pawn shops, check-cashing operations, distilleries and precious metal exchanges.

Trustees on Tuesday are expected to adopt a zoning regulation that would relegate these businesses to an out-of-the-way sector of the village north of the Erie Canal.

Specifically, those businesses would be limited to a light industrial section off Grove Street punctuated by a converted pickle packing plant known as the "Old Pickle Factory." The former factory houses several businesses, including an insurance company, a chiropractor, a spa and a yoga studio.

"We're not excluding these uses, but putting them in places where they won't adversely affect residential neighborhoods or the prime business districts in the village," said Mayor Robert Corby.

None of the six businesses are in the village, and Corby said none has recently applied for a permit.

He cast the legislation as a pre-emptive move to preserve the village's image at a time when such businesses, still found predominantly in cities, are riding a popular culture wave into suburbia.

Tattoos, once the staple of prisoners and sailors, have become fashionable. Pawnbrokers, often associated with desperation and seediness, are enjoying a renaissance buoyed by reality television and a flagging economy. The marketing of electronic cigarettes as safer alternatives to traditional cigarettes has breathed new life into smoke shops.

"The mindset of the younger generation is completely different" toward tattoos, said Joel Provost, who three years ago opened Pure Image Tattoo, a tidy little shop on Main Street in the neighboring village of Fairport. "Tattooing is mainstream."

National Pawnbrokers Association spokesman Emmett Murphy said characterizing pawn shops as an undesirable business is based on "stereotypical and outdated ideas" about the industry.

He said the average pawnbroker loan is $150 and that less than one-tenth of 1 percent of merchandise pawned is found to be stolen.

"These kinds of regulations are home runs in the minds of politicians in the sense that it's a feel-good law that's ... trying to make people feel that their community is being cleaned up," Murphy said. "The reality is the pawn industry is a financial service used by demographics across the board."

The proposed regulations aimed at limiting the locations of tobacco shops in Pittsford specifically address businesses "dedicated to the display, sale, distribution, delivery, offering, furnishing or marketing of tobacco, tobacco products or tobacco paraphernalia" and those "engaged in the retail sale of tobacco products for consumption by customers on the premises."

They say nothing of vape shops, which specialize in tobacco-free e-cigarettes and accessories and have popped up in Greece, Penfield, Fairport and Webster in the last couple of years. Most vape shops have lounges where customers can sample their wares.

Corby said trustees intended to cover vape shops, but acknowledged the stores may not be affected by the regulation as written. If that is the case, he anticipated the drafting of a new ordinance targeting vape shops.

Ryan Becker, who manages Village Vape or Smoke on Main Street in Webster, said he understood the motivation but disagreed with the means.

"Is it fair? No," Becker said. "But I understand how Pittsford is. A lot of people want to keep it how it was and they don't want these new businesses coming in."

DANDREATTA@Gannett.com

Twitter.com/david_andreatta