Trading standards officers in Sheffield have recently seized over 27,000 illegal vapes from a warehouse in the city, the city council said on Thursday.
Over the last year the team has seized more than 11,941 illegal vapes from city retailers, and taken action against three businesses who were selling vapes to children, resulting in fines of £880 each for two businesses and £440 for an individual.
“It is totally unacceptable that vapes are being designed and promoted to appeal to children and young people and it’s particularly concerning that many of the vapes seized were unregulated and contained excessively high illegal levels of nicotine,” Cllr Joe Otten, chair of Waste and Street Scene Policy Committee at the council, commented.
As inspections of local businesses selling vapes have found that many were selling vapes which didn’t meet legal requirements, the council advised vape retailers to act responsibly and to comply with the law when selling vaping products.
“Vaping helps adult smokers to quit, but if you don’t smoke you shouldn’t start vaping. We need to continue to do our best to stop children smoking, but we don’t want them to start vaping either,” Greg Fell, director of Public Health for Sheffield, said.
“It’s of great concern that vapes are being sold to children. Many vapes contain nicotine - which is addictive, and this is why vapes should only be used by adults as a tool to stop smoking or reduce harm from tobacco.”
