A STALYBRIDGE shop and its staff have been ordered to pay a four-figure sum after selling an e-cigarette to an underage person.
Trading standards officers from Tameside Council visited Waz off licence, on Ambleside, last August and made the test purchase.
That led to prosecution both for the business, which was represented by owner Syed Naqi Abbas Naqvi, as well as employee Ali Khetab Iqbal.
Both pleaded guilty to the sale of an e-cigarette to a person under the age of 18 on August 7 and the shop – owned by Naqvi of Station Road, Hadfield – has will pay £1,300.
Magistrates at Tameside on Monday, April 8, fined the business £750 plus ordered it to pay £300 victim surcharge and £250 costs.
Mr Iqbal, of Kenyon Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, was fined £80 plus ordered to pay a £32 victim surcharge and £250 costs.
A Tameside Council spokesperson said: “E-cigarettes should not be used by, or targeted at, children – due to the risk and unknown harms involved.
“Most businesses are responsible in who they sell these products to but we continue to be proactive in uncovering those that break the law and put young people at risk and we will always take enforcement action against them.”
Not exactly the crime of the century is it? I used to legally buy cigarettes at age 16 wearing my school uniform. Absolutely pathetic excuse to criminalise people. Why not prosecute the person who bought it too? Joke laws.