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\n A Halesowen shop owner has been convicted for selling illegal vapes to children, following an investigation by Dudley Council\u2019s Trading Standards team.\n <\/p>\n
Muhammad Ahmed Umar, of Tyseley, Birmingham, was trading as AK Tech and Gadget Limited and operated \u2018Top Mobile Repair and Vape Shop\u2019 on Halesowen High Street.<\/p>\n
After receiving multiple complaints about vapes being sold to school-aged children, Trading Standards officers carried out an inspection of the premises in June 2024.<\/p>\n
Umar initially denied selling or possessing illegal oversized vapes. However, officers discovered approximately 3,000 oversized disposable vapes hidden throughout the shop, many of which were accessible to the public.<\/p>\n
In February, a 16-year-old volunteer working undercover for Trading Standards entered the vape shop and was directed by Umar to another nearby premises, \u2018Mr Wraps\u2019. There, the child was sold a vape without being asked for any form of identification and a further inspection was then carried out.<\/p>\n
Umar was interviewed under caution in April and admitted to possessing the illegal vapes found during the inspections.<\/p>\n
The 40-year-old pleaded guilty to offences under the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations, the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations, and the Children and Families Act 2014.<\/p>\n
He was sentenced to 160 hours of unpaid community service and ordered to pay \u00a31,273 in costs and a \u00a3114 victim surcharge. AK Tech and Gadget Ltd, of which Umar is the director, was also fined \u00a32,000 and ordered to pay \u00a31,273 in costs and an \u00a3800 victim surcharge.<\/p>\n
Councillor Phil Atkins, cabinet member for trading standards and environmental health, said: \u201cThis was a shocking case of someone blatantly ignoring laws designed to protect children from the harmful effects of nicotine products.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Trading Standards team has once again shown that we will not tolerate illegal business practices. I hope this significant financial penalty serves as a clear warning to others \u2014 crime does not pay.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Halesowen shop owner has been convicted for selling illegal vapes to children, following an investigation by Dudley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[22440,22441,855,9163,22439,748,9444,1354,393,9453,4884,14987,269,12,3669,9440,93,16823,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-451514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-102-5","9":"tag-102-5-fm","10":"tag-birmingham","11":"tag-black-country","12":"tag-brierley-hill","13":"tag-britain","14":"tag-dab","15":"tag-dudley","16":"tag-england","17":"tag-fm","18":"tag-great-britain","19":"tag-halesowen","20":"tag-music","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-online","23":"tag-radio","24":"tag-sport","25":"tag-stourbridge","26":"tag-uk","27":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115267574924734697","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}