Shop workers and businesses caught breaking new tobacco and vaping laws could face on-the-spot fines of up to £200 under fresh legislation coming into force this month.
On-the-spot fines of up to £200 will hit businesses and shop workers caught breaking new tobacco and vaping laws across North Yorkshire.
The fixed penalty notices, which reduce to £100 if paid within fourteen days, have been adopted ahead of the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 coming into force on October 29.
Growing concerns over illegal sales have placed a particular focus on Scarborough, where the increasing number of vape shops in parts of the town has drawn recent scrutiny.
Trading Standards officers regularly investigate complaints relating to illegal tobacco and vape products in the area. Enforcement teams frequently carry out test purchases and inspections in response to intelligence received from residents, local businesses, and partner agencies.
However, small fines are unlikely to deter serious offenders involved in the illicit trade. A recent council report stated that many sellers of illegal tobacco and vape products are linked to organised crime.
For these larger operations, fixed penalties could simply become a cost of doing business rather than an effective deterrent. As a result, prosecution will continue to be considered for more serious or repeated offending.
The new fixed penalty notices will instead be used primarily in lower-level cases, such as situations where a shop employee has inadvertently breached the rules.
North Yorkshire Council's executive member for managing the environment, Councillor Richard Foster, said:
"The Tobacco and Vapes Act of 2026 now allows our enforcement team to go out and do fixed penalty notices on very minor infringements of the selling illegal vapes and tobacco.
We see it as a a minor part of what we can do here really. We have a lot bigger powers that we can bring and inform anybody who's repeat offending or offending majorly. We're on a use it going to be using this for say an employee in a shop who doesn't really know the rules or whatever or a first-time offender would probably be the only sort of time we'd actually go into using such small fines."
The crackdown on unfair trading also highlights a growing role for online enforcement.
North Yorkshire Council works alongside City of York Council to host the National Trading Standards e-Crime Team. This specialised unit collaborates with online service providers to remove websites suspected of misleading consumers.
Many complaints involve websites presenting themselves as United Kingdom-based businesses, while actually supplying poor-quality, misdescribed, or undelivered goods from overseas.
Councillor Richard Foster said:
"We work alongside York and we host the National Trading Standards e-Crime Team and we’ve got a protocol between online service providers and ourselves, so we can get them to take down websites that we think are trading unfairly.
A lot of them are based in Europe or elsewhere and are sub-standard products, so we can ask for websites to be taken down, and we get about 20 complaints a month."
The strengthened enforcement policy was unanimously approved by councillors during a recent meeting.
Deputy leader Councillor Mark Crane said:
"I think this is good news, well done to the team, because people deserve to be protected wherever possible."
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