Parents gripe about smell of “skunk” at cheer gym next to smoke shop
KDKA
By Ricky Sayer
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PERRYOPOLIS, Pennsylvania (KDKA) — The owner of a gym in Perryopolis says the smell from a neighboring smoke shop has made its way into the place where kids learn about gymnastics and cheer.
Parents say they smell marijuana inside ROCKNROLLS, which sits directly next to Tobacco Land.
“It smells like a skunk,” said one parent
“The only thing that separates us is about 3 inches of drywall,” said Jordan Adams, a coach and the gym’s co-owner. “A lot of the kids come up to me and say, ‘Coach, it stinks here in the gym, my head hurts a little bit, I don’t like it.'”
He describes the smell inside the cheer gym as that of “cigarettes, vape or marijuana.” On Wednesday, a KDKA crew went to the gym and could smell something inside it that smelled similar to the inside of the smoke shop, but not marijuana specifically.
Both parents and Adam said it was far more potent on Monday, with the smell dissipating since then
“We’ve had people take their kids home because they’re like, I don’t want my kid in this environment. And it’s terrible for business,” Adams said. “It’s terrible for us.”
“I think it’s completely inappropriate, not only for the little ones who really don’t understand it, but we have teenage girls in here. They know exactly what that is, and it’s not OK,” parent Amanda Cargill said.
Adams said he believes the owners and customers at the shop are smoking marijuana inside the store.
“Nobody’s smoking inside my facility,” Tobacco Land co-owner Sam Said told KDKA in a phone interview on Wednesday. “We don’t have delta-8 or delta-CBD. … You can search the store from the bottom to the top.”
Adams said he’s tried calling the police multiple times, but they haven’t been able to do anything.
“I literally feel trapped,” Adams said. “I feel terrorized in our own gym. We cannot do anything whatsoever.”
He’s now hoping local rules are changed with the intention of preventing businesses like the smoke shop from opening next to places like his gym, which is full of kids.
The building is at least partially owned by the smoke shop owners, they said, complicating things for the gym.
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