❓WHAT HAPPENED: The first vape store in West Kirby, England, was shut down due to “criminality and antisocial behaviour.”
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Wirral Council, The West Kirby Vape Shop, and its director, Khalid Qader.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The store was closed in March 2026; it was located in West Kirby, in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral.
🎯IMPACT: The closure order underscores the link between vape stores and criminal activity, dangerous goods, and illegal working.
The first vape store to open in West Kirby, England, has been forced to close just months after launching in October 2025, due to “criminality and antisocial behaviour.” Wirral Council enforcement officers who inspected the premises discovered a suspicious mattress on the floor in a back room, along with illegal cigarettes and illegal vapes.
Community complaints about the business surfaced shortly after it began operating. Andrea Fitzgerald, speaking for Wirral Council in court, said that someone had been found working there illegally and that counterfeit cigarettes were discovered. Kevin Burn, a tobacco compliance officer, said dozens of illegal vapes and several suspect bottles of Coca-Cola without proper labeling were also found, indicating multiple additional violations of regulations.
The court was informed that the shop’s director, Khalid Qader, is connected to another vape business in Oswestry, Shropshire, where officers intercepted a staff member attempting to flee with a suitcase and a shopping bag holding 5,000 illegal cigarettes. Vape stores are associated with similar issues in the United States, with a recent series of raids in Kinston, North Carolina, seeing four people arrested and drugs and millions in cash seized.
Previous investigations have found strong links between vape stores, which are spreading in numbers far beyond the market demand for them, and organized crime, human trafficking, drug dealing, and illegal immigration.
They are also a serious risk to life and the heritage of the communities they are proliferating in, with an unregistered vape store in Glasgow, Scotland, recently burning down a 175-year-old landmark. It also caused the country’s largest railway station, located nearby, to close down, throwing the transport network into days of ongoing chaos.
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