Banbury shop owner fined after his business was caught selling disposable e-cigarettes to children

A Banbury shop owner has been fined after his business was caught selling disposable e-cigarettes to children.

Jahngeer Hanif, aged 42, trading as Broad Street Supermarket in Banbury, was fined £600, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £60 and a contribution of £1,000 towards the Oxfordshire County Council's (OCC's) costs after he pleaded guilty to the offence.

This followed an investigation by OCC's trading standards service.

The shop sold the disposable e-cigarettes, sometimes known as ‘puff bars’ or ‘vape pens’, to 16-year-old test purchasers in March this year, despite the legal age limit for the sale of e-cigarettes being 18 and over.

Didcot Vaping Ltd, who trade as Didcot Vaping Store, also pleaded guilty to selling an e-cigarette to a child and were fined £666, were ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £67 and the council’s full costs of £2,124.

A third company is due in court in January in relation to both selling an e-cigarette to a child and for selling an e-cigarette that does not – despite a previous warning being given about the product in question – meet the UK packaging standards for e-cigarettes.

Councillor Jenny Hannaby, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for community services and safety, said: “It is important that those people who want to use e-cigarettes to quit smoking have access to these products as they are one of the most effective methods of supporting a quit attempt.

"However, whilst e-cigarettes pose only a small fraction of the risk of traditional cigarettes, they are not risk free products and we do not encourage young people who have never smoked before to begin using them.

“Many Oxfordshire retailers work very hard to train their staff and implement systems to prevent the sale of such items to children under the age of 18. That said, anyone who does sell age restricted products but fails to make sure that they have taken adequate precautions should be aware of the potential consequences if they fail a test of this kind.”

Anyone with information about the sale of illegal, disposable e-cigarettes or underage sales can email [email protected]