Police seize hundreds of illegal vapes and cigarettes from Sleaford store
Hundreds of suspected illegal vapes and counterfeit cigarettes have been seized by police.
A chance encounter saw an officer spot an attempted sale of a vape to a child at the Fresh Fruit and Grocery Mini Market in Southgate, Sleaford.
Further inspection led to Lincolnshire Police uncovering hundreds of illicit products at the store.
“One of our officers was at the Fresh Fruit and Grocery Mini Market in Southgate, Sleaford, on routine enquiries for another incident unrelated to the store, when he saw the shop worker about to sell vapes to children while he was in the store,” a Lincolnshire Police statement read.
“He intervened on the sale, which would have been illegal due their ages. Just as with cigarettes, vapes containing nicotine cannot be sold to anyone under the age of 18.
“This is when he spotted that the vapes on offer were all illegal.”
All of these vapes were offering between 4,000 and 10,000 puffs per vape.
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As a rule, disposable vapes should have around 600 puffs in them, so they comply with the legal limits on size.
The local Neighbourhood Policing Team (NPT) were called in to help search the premises for any further illicit goods.
“That search led to the team finding suspected illicit cigarettes, and in total, officers pulled out 14 sacks full of vapes and cigarettes from the shop,” the statement continued.
“All of these could have been sold to the local community.
“Illicit e-cigarettes and cigarettes are not compliant with UK legal regulations on labelling, and could lack important self-extinguishing safety features, have higher nicotine concentration levels, contain banned ingredients or have oversized tanks for nicotine.”
The case has now been passed to Lincolnshire Trading Standards to investigate.
Anyone with information about shops selling illegal vapes or cigarettes, or selling vapes to children, can report this to Trading Standard at https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/get-more-help/report-to-trading-standards/.
