Off-licence fined for stocking illegal vapes

North Yorkshire Council trading standards officers found the illegal vapes during an inspection of the shop in Skipton

An off-licence has been fined more than £6,000 for stocking dozens of illegal vapes.

North Yorkshire Council trading standards officers found 160 of the vapes, with a retail value of £1,600, on display during an inspection of the shop in Skipton.

Shahram Sharifi, director of Lewiatan Ltd in Sackville Street, pleaded guilty to the offence at York Magistrates’ Court on Friday.

Sharifi and his business was ordered to pay a total of £6,725 including fines, surcharges and court costs.

Vapes are illegal if the tank capacity is more than 2ml and the nicotine volume is more than 20mg.

Sharifi had already been issued with a warning after similar products had been seized at the shop in May 2022, the authority said.

Karl Battersby, North Yorkshire Council’s corporate director for environment, said: “The regulations set strict limits for the amount of liquid in these devices in order to limit the risks associated with nicotine.

“These devices contained more than three times that limit."

He added: "Information about the manufacturer in the UK and the batch code was also missing, so there is no traceability which would allow all vapes of this type to be located and removed from the supply chain."