The ECHO has followed Liverpool Council on its fight against the illegal vape trade
Illegal vapes are seized from Booze Butler in West Derby(Image: Liverpool Echo)
The sale of illegal vapes has been described as a trade that makes “more money than cocaine” in Liverpool. The lucrative trade has led to businesses throughout the city taking drastic measures in a bid to protect their illicit wares.
Today, a council chief told the ECHO one raid netted a stash worth more than £100,000 – as officials vowed to crack down on the trade across our city. This past summer, the UK Government made it illegal to sell or supply single-use or disposable vapes, regardless of whether they contain nicotine, and covers both in-store and online sales. Despite this, some traders across Liverpool have failed to take notice.
In this city alone, disposable vapes are particularly popular among young people, with 78% choosing non-rechargeable, non-refillable products. This prompted some staff at one shop a little more than two weeks after the ban came in to admit to undercover offices they “just had to be careful” as they handed over illegal vapes during test purchases.
This came to the fore again as recently as this month as Arbela Food Mart in Wavertree was found to have sold an underage customer a vape – they were there in fact to test the business for compliance. A 16-year-old volunteer was sold a £4 Elf Bar vape in March.
That shop has subsequently been shut down by the courts and had its licence stripped by the city council following a litany of failures including excessive sales of counterfeit cigarettes, tobacco and viagra.
The ECHO has covered the battle against the illegal vape trade extensively during this year, including joining the city council’s trading standards officials as they swooped on rogue traders in a joint operation with Merseyside Police. More than 1,000 non-permitted vapes from three locations in Clubmoor and Old Swan worth around £15,000.
Michael Hearty, from the alcohol and tobacco unit explained to the ECHO the scale of the challenge the unit faces. He said how on one visit to Liverpool Meat and Fish Market a stash worth £105,000 was seized.
He added: “Some of the concealments they have now are sophisticated, walls coming up and down. They must be paying people a lot of money.
“I know it’s only vapes but in other places it could be weapons. There are people probably making more money out of this than cocaine.
“This is a lower level of risk to them.” Nearly 5m single-use vapes are discarded every week, contributing significantly to litter and landfill issues.
Illegal vapes are seized from Booze Butler(Image: Liverpool Echo)
In addition to environmental concerns, the legislation also seeks to reduce the rising popularity of vaping among young people. The proportion of 16 to 24-year-olds who vape has increased by almost 10% over the past two years.
In June 2023, directors of public health across Merseyside released a joint statement in support of the ban, highlighting the need to protect children from aggressive marketing by vape and tobacco companies. Residents can return reusable vapes to distributors for recycling.
Retailers who possess any leftover single-use vaping products should mark them as unsellable and separate them from other goods. They must be removed from sale until collected for disposal.
The lengths some would go to could generously be described as creative. At Booze Butler on Queens Drive, hundreds of single use vapes were concealed behind the till while another box of illicit goods was found in a store room at the back of the shop.
A filing cabinet was also filled to the brim while a further discovery was made before officers left the shop with a box of illegal vapes hidden behind a kickboard on the floor near the till. Around £6,000 worth were taken in seven bags from King Vape alone.
Merseyside Police search for illegal vapes in Old Swan Off License(Image: Liverpool Echo)
One of the police officers told the ECHO: “Organised crime groups (OCGs) get involved in this and from a police point of view, this disrupts organised activity.”
In August, it transpired how some devices were concealed in chocolate boxes at MP Food and Wine in Belle Vale.
What appeared to be a box of Maltesers actually contained dozens of illicit products, uncovered when intelligence was received by the local authority suggesting an increase in youths hanging around the shop using vapes and causing anti-social behaviour. Methods employed at another MP Food and Wine store, also in Belle Vale, were compared to drug dealers after thousands of pounds worth of illicit vapes were seized from “professionally installed” concealments.
Across two visits alone to the shop, members of the authority’s alcohol and tobacco unit obtained around £6,000 worth of contraband stock that had been hidden away and sold to the public despite instructions not to do so. On one occasion, it was alleged staff in the shop turned off CCTV cameras to conceal the whereabouts of the forbidden products during a test purchase.
Mr Hearty said the items were hidden in “professionally installed concealments,” adding: “It’s like something a drug dealer would do. This is a corner shop in Belle Vale.”