Shop has licence revoked over 1,000 illegal vapes

A convenience shop has had its licence revoked after 1,000 illegal vapes were confiscated from its premises.

Jordanthorpe Food & Wine, located on Dyche Lane in Sheffield, was initially visited by Trading Standards in 2023 over reports of vapes being sold to under-18s.

After 1,176 illegal vapes were seized across multiple site visits, the shop was referred to the city council's licensing committee on grounds of preventing crime and protecting children from harm.

The solicitor representing the shop's owner said he was sorry, and had been "naïve" to not realise the vapes, which had been sourced from wholesalers, were illegal.

A Trading Standards report stated the seized vapes were not permitted for sale in the UK and were therefore "suspected to have been smuggled or illegally imported".

"[They] should not be stocked in wholesale or retail premises for supply," it added.

In February 2023, 468 illegal vapes were seized from the shop, followed by 466 more exactly one year later, and a further 242 confiscated in December 2024.

A mystery shopper for Trading Standards was able to buy a vape for £10 in January, which the authority said showed the shop "had not listened to previous repeated requests to stop selling illegal vapes".

Its most recent visit on 8 May found more illegal vapes and more than a dozen packets of illegal hand-rolled tobacco, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

South Yorkshire Police previously said the sale of illegal vapes was closely linked to organised crime gangs and urged the committee to revoke the store's licence.

Sheffield Children Safeguarding Partnership labelled the shop as an "unsafe and criminal environment".

The committee opted to revoke the licence following a short deliberation.

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