A YATE shop’s owner has been ordered to pay more than £16,000 in fines and costs after being prosecuted for possessing and selling illegal oversized vapes.
South Gloucestershire Council took Anwar Sdiq to court after a complaint to trading standards last year about his convenience store in Yate Shopping Centre.
Council officers made a test purchase from the Yate Market shop in North Walk and returned with police officers on November 30 to seize 73 disposable e-cigarettes containing more than the maximum 2ml nicotine e-liquid limit allowed by law.
Sdiq, aged 44, of Bishopworth in Bristol, was prosecuted as the sole director of the shop’s operator Worthy Market Bristol Ltd.
He pleaded guilty to supplying and being possession of illegal oversized vapes when he appeared at Bristol Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
Sdiq was fined a total of £9,549, ordered to pay the council’s costs of £3,632.33 plus £3,180 in victim surcharges, making a total of £16,361.33.
Magistrates also ordered that all 73 seized vapes be destroyed.
Vaping ‘not risk-free’
Afterwards the council cabinet member responsible for trading standards, Sean Rhodes, said: “I’m pleased to see this considerable fine handed out and the illegal vapes taken off the street.
“Only legally compliant e-cigarettes that have undergone the MHRA submission and notification process should be sold to customers.
“The council’s Trading Standards team continue to respond to complaints and undertake routine checks to ensure only legally compliant vapes are sold to the public.
“During the last three years we have seized over 9,500 illegal disposable e-cigarette devices, with a retail value of over £76,000.
“Although vaping is considered far safer than smoking traditional tobacco products, inhaling nicotine through a device is not risk-free.
“Legislation is in place to regulate products that are placed on the market. Responsible retailers only sell e-cigarette devices that are compliant with the law.
“Those retailers who choose to put profit before compliance can expect a visit from the council’s Trading Standards team.”
The council is calling on anyone who suspects they may have been sold, or knows of a business supplying illegal vapes to report it by calling 0808 223 1133, visiting the Citizens Advice Consumer Service www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer or reporting it anonymously to Trading Standards South West at www.tssw.org.uk/work-areas/report-it.