Havering Council\u2019s licensing and trading standards teams have been out across the borough to prevent local retailers selling age-restricted products such as vapes and tobacco to young people aged under 18.<\/p>\n
The teams visited eight different premises in Hornchurch, Rainham, Upminster, Harold Hill, Harold Wood and Romford recently.<\/p>\n
They were accompanied by volunteers all aged under 18 as part of the operation.<\/p>\n
The volunteers helped officers by going into the businesses to attempt to buy tobacco or a vape, also known as e-cigarettes.<\/p>\n
These products are illegal to sell to anyone under the age of 18. <\/p>\n
All businesses visited on this particular operation refused to sell any of the age-restricted items to the young people.<\/p>\n
If a business is found to be selling age-restricted goods to those underage, they are issued with warnings if it is a first offence.<\/p>\n
Council officers will then work with them to support on training and ensuring they understand and comply with regulations.<\/p>\n
All businesses are re-visited and any further failures may result in a review of their licence or prosecution.<\/p>\n
Even if a business does pass the test, they are also re-visited unannounced at any time.<\/p>\n
The Council\u2019s licensing and trading standards teams also work with businesses to encourage them to sign up to the Challenge 25 Scheme.<\/p>\n
This scheme encourages young people to carry ID and for retailers to ask for that ID if they think the person looks younger.<\/p>\n
Councillor Ray Morgon, Leader of Havering Council, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re pleased that these local businesses are supporting us.<\/em><\/p>\n “They are helping to keep our young people safer across the borough by not selling products like this, to anyone under the legal age.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNone of the businesses broke the rules on this particular operation, but our teams are regularly making these visits.<\/em><\/p>\n “This means we can make sure everyone is continuing to comply.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWe will always take the strongest possible action on those that don\u2019t comply, which may include prosecution.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Havering Council\u2019s licensing and trading standards teams have been out across the borough to prevent local retailers selling age-restricted products such as vapes and tobacco to young people aged under 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instituteoflicensing.org\/news_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}