Leeds officials 'really worried' about illegal sales of vapes to underage teenagers in the city

The city’s authorities are “really worried” about the “emerging” problem of underage e-cigarette sales, local councillors were told this week. It follows widespread nationwide concerns about children taking up vaping, despite the fact the products are supposed to help wean smokers off traditional cigarettes.

The chair of the city council’s health scrutiny board attacked the vaping industry for “outrageously” targeting young people with its marketing. The UK Vaping Industry Association has been contacted for comment.

Speaking at a meeting of the board, Kathryn Ingold, the council’s public health lead for children and families, said: “It is illegal for anyone under 18 to buy vaping products that contain nicotine, but we know children are getting hold of them. There are no restrictions on shop displays and many shops have really attractive displays of vapes and the industry is very clever in how they market them. We’re really very worried about the emerging illicit market in underage sales.”

Fellow public health expert Heather Thomson told the board that reports of underage vape sales now outstrip claims of underage tobacco sales in shops across Leeds. West Yorkshire Trading Standards is among those looking to crack down on retailers who illegally sell to children, the meeting was told. Test purchase operations, which are traditionally used to catch shops selling alcohol, cigarettes and knives to children, are one tool the authorities are likely to use.

Ms Thomson said: “Anecdotally we’ve been told groups of young people are coming into the city centre where vapes are easily available to them and they’ve been sold them. Primarily young people want the fruity flavoured ones. I think 60 per cent have said they prefer the fruity vapes, which are really being pushed with the bright colouring, marketing and the flavouring. Less appealing to young people, interestingly now, are the vapes that are tobacco-flavoured.”

The scrutiny board’s chairperson, Conservative councillor Dan Cohen, was one of several councillors to hit out at the industry for the way vapes are promoted. “The marketing is unambiguously designed to attract young people,” he said. “It’s genuinely outrageous.”

A&E nurse and Liberal Democrat councillor Sandy Lay, who recently led the calls for a council inquiry into child vaping, called for more regulation of the industry. She said: “We waited around 60 years between the mid-1950s, when the harm of tobacco became known, before there were regulations. We can’t wait that long. Generations of kids will be harmed waiting for it to happen.”