Seven vape shops in Babylon Town were shuttered this week for various violations including violations of fire codes and lack of a certificate of occupancy.

Babylon Town Councilman Terence McSweeney gave a press conference in front of one of the closed businesses, Cloud Werx on Route 109 in West Babylon. He said the town Quality of Life Task Force’s sting operation focused on twelve of these types of businesses and found dozens of fire and building code violations.

McSweeney called on these businesses to follow Town Code and to remove any advertising that targets children.

Babylon Town’s action follows a sting operation conducted by the Suffolk County Police that caught nearly a dozen shops selling to minors.

“The First Precinct’s role in that was to send undercover agents into 23 stores that we believe sold vape products,” Inspector Kevin Kane said. “Out of those 23 stores, at 10 such locations people did sell e-cigarettes or liquid nicotine to minors.”

Some of the closed vape shops had been previously cited for selling to minors, although this alone is not enough to shut a location down.

The Town of Babylon passed a law last year banning stores that sell vaping products from opening in residential or retail areas or near schools. Existing shops were grandfathered in, but new shops are limited to industrial areas only.