VAPE SHOP SHAMBLES

MSP slams 'scandalous' lack of checks

- BY MARK McGIVERN

BURNING ISSUE The devastating fire started in a small vape shop on Union Street

THE country's vape shop registration scheme can today be exposed as a farce.

A Record investigation found it appears that any business could register their shop with no safety checks and within a day be on the Scottish Government's Register of Tobacco and Nicotine Vapour Product Retailers.

We focused on one shop, next to Queen Street Station in Glasgow, whose sign advertises vapes and tobacco.

Shop workers and managers refuse to say which company or person is ultimately running the business.

The mystery surrounding the Quick Stop shop on Dundas Street is typical of many others in the city amid the aftermath of the Union Street fire.

After the blaze that almost spread to Central Station, we were alerted to the shop, which was not registered to sell vapes or tobacco, outside Queen Street Station.

Within a day of our reporter confronting the staff, its status had gone from unregistered to registered.

Hundreds of other shops are still thought to be carrying on as normal in small units up and down Scotland, unregistered and unregulated.

And Companies House filings give little clue as to who should be held accountable if volatile lithium batteries contained in vapes cause the premises to go up in flames.

The register does not require any initial inspection of premises - and there are no further checks made.