Wiltshire Trading Standards to keep fighting illegal tobacco sales
Six vape shops have been ordered to close in the county in the last six months for illegal vape and tobacco sales
Wiltshire Trading Standards (TS) is promising to continue shutting down vape shops selling illegal products.
In the last six months, six such stores across the county have been ordered to close after investigations by Trading Standards.
Public Protection manager, Emma Carroll, told Greatest Hits Radio that it's a growing issue.
"Towards the middle of last year, we noticed a huge rise in complaints around illegal tobacco being sold within Wiltshire, and these are shops that have opened up in the High Street and are purporting, from the outside to be vape shops," she said.
Emma told us these stores are attempting to sell illegal tobacco to people buying vapes, and selling the items at a fraction of the usual price.
In some cases, 50g of handroll tobacco is being sold for as little £5, while a genuine item is at least £32.
Several of the stores that have been given closure orders were also reported for selling to children.
"They are indiscriminate about who they sell to," Emma said, "They don't have the same procedures that you would expect to find in a legitimate business to check the age of their customers and they're willing to just sell these to anybody that goes in and wants to buy."
More than people's health being put at risk
The illegal items are dangerous to health as they've not been through the same testing as legitimate products.
Emma said: "All tobacco is unsafe, but the problem with buying illegal tobacco is that it hasn't been made within that regulated environment.
"Legal tobacco has been made and we know the levels of chemicals and things that are in there, whereas when you buy a legal tobacco, we have absolutely no idea what is in there because it hasn't been through the same testing."
But Emma told us it's not just our health we are putting at risk.
Legitimate cigarettes have a safety feature of reduced ignition propensity, meaning when we're not inhaling, they will self-extinguish.
This is achieved with a series of rings around the white area of the cigarette.
"With illegal cigarette, they don't have that built in. So if people were to smoke or someone was to have them lit, it wouldn't go out automatically, and there have been several fatal house fires linked specifically to illegal cigarettes because of this," Emma said.
She added that illegal traders are undermining those working within the law, insisting that they're on the side of those following the rules, saying they're doing everything they can to put the illegal traders out of business.
Emma's message to those operating illegally is that they might be next: "We do receive the complaints and it's probably only a matter of time until we get to you as well."