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Trading standards stamping out illegal cigarettes and tobacco
22/06/2021
Recent checks show compliance with the law
Being able to buy smuggled or counterfeit cigarettes or hand-rolling tobacco in Oxfordshire shops may be a thing of the past. That’s the view of Oxfordshire County Council’s trading standards team as they reach the fourth anniversary of their ‘stop illegal tobacco’ campaign.
Since the campaign started the team have seized 94,480 illegal cigarettes, 16,750 grams of illegal hand-rolling tobacco and 115,220 grams of illegal shisha tobacco.
They have also brought 16 successful prosecutions (with four more pending) and brought five licence reviews. This resulted in over 50 additional conditions added to premises’ licences, licence suspensions totalling 24 weeks and one licence being revoked.
Councillor Neil Fawcett, Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Community Services and Safety, said: “These are tremendous successes in our quest to remove illegal tobacco from shops and streets. We know the vast majority of retailers are honest and only sell legitimate products, and we thank them for their support.
“The aim is to reduce overall prevalence of smoking to less than one in 20 people by 2025 and, in doing so, achieve our vision to inspire the first smoke free generation in Oxfordshire. But we won’t be sitting on our hands – the team will continue to do periodic spot checks using sniffer dogs, as we turn our focus to other methods of supply, including online and through social media.”
Jody Kerman, Oxfordshire County Council’s Head of Trading Standards, said: “In the last few weeks we have completed 15 covert test purchase attempts and used tobacco detection dogs to inspect 22 premises. While we had two seizures in May and investigations are ongoing, both those premises have since been revisited and are now in compliance.
“No illegal tobacco was detected during any of the other test purchases and inspections. At the moment, at least, it seems like Oxfordshire’s shops are free of illegal tobacco.”
If you believe somewhere is selling illegal tobacco you can report it anonymously by calling 0300 999 6 999 or by visiting stop-illegal-tobacco.co.uk.
Published: by Banbury FM Newsteam