The Council's trading standards team is enforcing laws on the supply of illegal tobacco and vapes in Sheffield to protect the public from harm.
Their work has led to a recent haul of 27,000 illegal vapes from a warehouse in the city.
In addition, over the last year the team has seized more than 11,941 illegal vapes from city retailers, and taken action against three businesses who were selling vapes to children, resulting in fines of £880 each for two businesses and £440 for an individual.
The team receives a significant number of consumer complaints about sales of illegal vaping products and sales of vapes to children.
Last year, they carried out inspections of local businesses selling vapes and found many were selling vapes which didn’t meet legal requirements.
It’s so important for our Trading Standards team to investigate and take swift action on this issue. I thank them for their dedication and it’s good to see these successful hauls and prosecutions against those who sell vapes illegally. I thank the team and the officers of South Yorkshire Police who assist the Trading Standards Team in their work.
It is totally unacceptable that vapes are being designed and promoted to appeal to children and young people and it’s particularly concerning that many of the vapes seized were unregulated and contained excessively high illegal levels of nicotine. Illegal vapes may also pose additional health risks compared to regulated vapes. These risks can include exposure to harmful chemicals and heavy metals, such as lead and nickel.None of us want our children put at risk, which is why we are committed to ensuring that the next generation is protected from those who target them with vapes to save them from a potential lifetime of nicotine addiction.
Councillor Joe Otten, Chair of Waste and Street Scene Policy Committee
The team advises vape retailers to act responsibly and to comply with the law when selling vaping products. To stay within the law, retailer should:
- buy stock from legitimate sources
- keep receipts for their stock purchases
- make sure the products they sell have the correct labelling including manufacturer details, tank size andnicotine content and the correct prescribed health warnings
- check that the vapes they sell have a liquid tank size of 2ml and a nicotine strength of no more than 20mg/ml
- check that any company that makes vaping products that is supplying to them has registered their products with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency(MHRA)
Retailers can do this by checking the list of submitted vape products at the GOV.UK: Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency website.
If retailers cannot find them on the list, they should ask their supplier to confirm that they comply with the requirements of the regulations and that they have been notified. The GOV.UK: Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency webpage contains more information on this.
The law states that no one can produce or supply a vape or refill container unless they meet the following requirements:
- nicotine-containing liquid for retail sale must be in a dedicated refill container in a maximum volume of 10 ml; in a disposable vape, single-use cartridge or a tank the maximum volume is 2 ml
- the capacity of the tank of a refillable vape must not be more than 2 ml
- there is a nicotine limit of 20 mg per ml that applies to nicotine-containing liquids in a vape or refill container
Disposable vapes sometimes display a typical number of puffs on the packaging. Typically, a disposable vape provides 600 puffs of nicotine.
Vaping helps adult smokers to quit, but if you don’t smoke you shouldn’t start vaping. We need to continue to do our best to stop children smoking, but we don’t want them to start vaping either. It’s of great concern that vapes are being sold to children. Many vapes contain nicotine - which is addictive, and this is why vapes should only be used by adults as a tool to stop smoking or reduce harm from tobacco.
Delivering this vital enforcement action through our Trading Standards team is essential and we look forward to tougher national regulation to complement this work.Greg Fell, Director of Public Health for Sheffield
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill is currently going through parliament and will strengthen enforcement activity, allowing Trading Standards to take even faster action to enforce the law, including on non-compliant vaping products, and closing loopholes in the law.
If anyone knows someone who is selling vapes or tobacco illegally, they can report them to trading standards either through the local council or through the Citizens Advice online portal: www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/
The Trading Standards team continues to work in partnership with teams across the Council, including Public Health, Safeguarding and Licensing and external partners including South Yorkshire Police and South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service.
More information on the law on the packaging, tracking and tracing of tobacco products and the distribution and advertising of vapes is on Business Companion.
What you can do
Members of the public concerned about shops selling illegal vapes and in particular vapes to children can report this directly to our Trading Standards team or they can call or email Citizens Advice on 0808 223 1133 who will pass the information onto the council.
More information is available from Smokefree Sheffield and on the Action on Smoking and Health website.
For those in the UK who can't hear or speak on the phone, they can type what they want to say to 18001 then 0808 223 1133. Relay UK can be used with an app or a textphone and there is no extra charge to use it. More information is at Relay UK - homepage | Relay UK (bt.com).
Single use vapes ban
From 1 June 2025, it will be illegal for businesses to sell or supply all single-use or ‘disposable’ vapes. This applies to sales online and in shops and all vapes whether they contain nicotine or not. The banning of disposable vapes is designed to reduce the appeal of vapes to children and also protect the environment.
More information on the Single Use Vapes Ban is available from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the GOV.UK: Single-use vapes ban webpage.