E-cigarette store plans to open in downtown Oak Park

The e-cigarette store Cignot is scheduled to open in downtown Oak Park within 10 days, owner Victoria Vasconcellos said Thursday.
“We're almost in,” Vasconcellos said. “We ought to be open in per week, week and a half. Our buildout is nothing. We're small and we don't take up lots of room.”
Vasconcellos, an Elmhurst resident who owns four other Cignot stores through the entire Chicago suburbs and supplies two stores bearing her company's name in Colorado and Missouri, calls Cignot, Inc. a “service organization.”
Without any significance of elaborate display space, preparation of the newest store at 101 N. Marion St. is prior to the firm's projected May opening.
“The cabinets were set yesterday,” Vasconcellos said Thursday. “We're just waiting for lighting and plasterers, so we are able to paint the walls.”
Vasconcellos declined to express how much she dedicated to the website, other than it had been minimal because much of her team has experience in construction.
The Marion Street space was very attractive, because its proximity to both Metra and Chicago Transit Authority commuter railroad stations can make it possible for customers to locate, Vasconcellos said.
“We're a destination business,” she said. “We don't expect to obtain foot traffic from people window shopping. People are not just going to walk past and say, ‘I'm gonna quit smoking now. I must stop in here.' This is a lifestyle change.”
Vasconcellos'inspiration for launching the organization was to help smokers quit, she said.
Her electronic cigarettes are powered by way of a battery that charges a coil with resistance, Vasconcellos said. The coil warms as liquid is gradually brought to the coil, where vapor is created, she said.
The liquid contents are primarily vegetable glycerine or propolene glycol, Vasconcellos said. The rest of the ingredients are water, flavoring and nicotine, that latter of making up less than 3 percent of the overall product, she said
“Vaporizing is not smoking,” Vasconcellos said. “People errantly link nicotine to tobacco smoke. The jury remains from nicotine. I know I'll die if I continue steadily to smoke. That is 99 times safer.”