Photo by Jessica Stewart / St. Joseph News-Press / Purchase this photo

Clifton Rathman inspects a tire Thursday afternoon at Heartland Tire & Retread.

Mark Horstman admits the smoke from his tire retread business has been worse than he expected.

But with a little patience, he hopes nearby residents can come to see Heartland Tire & Retread as a good neighbor.

When Heartland Tire started operations last month, residents began to complain of breathing problems and other issues. They attribute the problems to smoke that escapes into the air from a semitrailer that receives recycled tire particles through a pipe connected to Heartland Tire’s building.

Mr. Horstman promises the problem won’t be around for long. As his company begins operations at the new facility, it has to adjust its equipment on the fly. When certain valves are not set up correctly, smoke billows into the sky. The best way to fix the machine is to do so while it’s in operation, so workers can see the results, he said.

“If it was like that every day I’d be mad, too,” Mr. Horstman said. “When it’s smoking out there, it’s smoking in here, too. It’ll drive the operator crazy.”

On Thursday, the machine that buffs old tread off tires was shooting rubber particles through the pipe to the trailer outside. No smoke was visible as the machine did its work.

“We know it was terrible (Wednesday). We know we still have some adjustments to do and we’re still tweaking it,” Mr. Horstman said.

The city’s zoning laws initially restricted a business like Heartland Tire from moving into its current location on Locust Street. In January, the City Council passed an ordinance that reclassified tire retread businesses from manufacturing to commercial, and Heartland Tire moved in.

The interior of the shop contains well-lit, open, concrete areas with shiny new machines that take old tread off tires, put new tread on, and ship them out to customers — cleaner than the garages where many people park their cars.

Mr. Horstman invested more than $250,000 to move his business from its previous location on Fourth Street, where it had operated for nearly 20 years. The company has six employees, and Mr. Horstman said nearly all of the contractors he used in the move were from St. Joseph. He hates to think what would happen if the city decided to shut him down.

“The city approved these plans,” he said. “Somebody would have to give me my quarter-million back.”

Clinton Thomas can be reached

at clintonthomas@npgco.com.