What is the issue with 'vape shops'?

[SnufkinsSpiritAnimal]

I see it mentioned in threads about declining towns, and whilst I understand that chicken shops, betting shops and such tend to pop up more regularly in downmarket areas, why is a vape shop a signifier of this?

Surely people from all areas and backgrounds might wish to give up smoking cigarettes and use vaping as a way to bridge the gap? Why would it be associated with a 'bad area'?

I must say that currently I live in a town that has sped downhill faster than a bat out of hell, especially since the pandemic, and there's no improvement in sight (rising crime, knives, dereliction and drugs).
But we only have one vape shop, to my knowledge here.

I guess by banking it then yes they are paying tax on it which isnt ideal for the crims but how else are they able to wash the cash legitimately?!

Criminal cash is mainly - although not exclusively - related to drugs. The vast majority of drug dealing happens in cash and therefore dealers (and those further up the hierarchy) end up with lots of cash. There's a huge amount of cash circulating in the black economy.

Criminals like cash - there's no audit trail, it can't be traced back to anyone, it can be used for lots of daily expenses. But cash is bulky and heavy. You wouldn't want to be carrying around 100k - if you get stopped by the police, it will be seized. You run the risk of being robbed. Somewhere I read that criminals make £4bn a year from cocaine alone. And a lot of that will be in cash.

They need to get that into the financial system and their bank accounts so that they can use it to buy houses and cars and luxury watches (and pay suppliers). You can't do that with cash. So getting that cash into a bank account is the first step for laundering drugs money. Some criminals do just take it into the post office and deposit in their account. Some mix it with funds from legit business to try and hide it - often they will pay tax on it because what better way to make it look legit than to report it to HMRC and pay your tax? And the amount you lose to tax is just an overhead charge which you have to pay to get the bulk of your money into something more usable than cash.

This is most people’s problem with the one in our shopping centre. One window is full of bright coloured Fanta/other fizzy drinks, they play really loud music, there’s a balloon arch outside, it’s always decorated to season themes (Easter, Halloween, Christmas).

My eldest is 7, and can’t keep his eyes off it when we walk past. There’s always small children pointing/asking to go in. Theses kids couldn’t be further from the alleged target market, so why is it so appealing to them?

Which country is this?

Not all chicken shops are there for money laundering @Rummly and I am pretty sure no-one is saying that. Ditto nail bars, barber shops, vape shops, and little car wash joints etc - (that all prefer cash too.) But some of them are. And they are more likely to be than some fancy restaurant, or nice quality hairdressers with professional stylists. (Who all take debit and credit cards.)

You sound hilariously naïve.

If they were laundering money though vape or chicken shops they would set up the shops with dirty money and use the shops to generate profits. The origin of the dirty money would be obscured at the start. That’s what money laundering is: changing bad money into legit money through business use. It’s not about using someone else’s bank account, at least not on any scale.

What crims wouldn’t do is use a chicken shop’s bank account to deposit visible, traceable money that couldn’t possibly be explained away as strong sales to late-night munchers. Well, they could, but they’d be pretty stupid.

@Rummly Criminals are pretty stupid - that's exactly what they do. They deposit cash into a bank account, sometimes a front company, sometimes a cash-based business, sometimes someone who lets them or is forced to let them use their account. I mean, I say they're stupid but they still get away with it all the time.

@beryldaperil - Canada

Sure. I get that. And am happy to defer to you as a professional.

But it would seem a bizarre way to get money into the banking system by using a chicken shop’s bank account. I can see the purpose in owning and running a chicken shop - or any other shop - by diversifying crims, for buying into the open economy. Much as casinos have traditionally been cash-fluid genuine(ish) businesses started with criminal proceeds. But small shops would be a very inefficient and slow way to mingle clean with dirty money in small amounts.

I suspect that small and especially transient businesses are committing tax fraud and engaging in employment abuses much, much more than they’re in cahoots with drug dealers.

I don't mind vape shops (although I did like vaping).
My problem with them us that there are so many! In my suburb we used to have interesting shops. Now it's all nail bars and vape shops.

That's meant to say I dislike vaping

@Rummly You do need quite a few shops, definitely - but some of these networks have hundreds of people in them and are highly organised and professional in the way that they work. It is slow and it does take a while but the controls in place are absolutely minimal and so it's much safer than any methods of laundering. Each shop (chicken or otherwise!) will be part of a whole criminal enterprise - details are gradually coming out about what happened when law enforcement took down an encrypted communication platform that was used by criminals but it gave an insight into the world of large scale criminal money laundering - it's both very simple (put extra money through the till) and very organised (put money through the till x 1000 tills).

Modern slavery/organised immigration crime is a big issue too, as you say. Not just in terms having cheap labour but they often use the identity details of their slaves to set up multiple bank accounts which they'll also use to receive the proceeds of crimes. Tax fraud, too (but technically that's them committing the underlying criminal behaviour rather than money laundering although the proceeds will get laundered at some point, but probably but via shops/cash businesses).

Thank you. That’s very interesting.

I assume the encrypted communication platform was the one the Dutch cracked.

Is it generally true, though, that vape and chicken shops insist on cash? I only know of one (very longstanding and reputable) fish and chip shop that refuses cards. Otherwise in the last few years I haven’t been in a shop - vape, chicken, kebab, newsagents, mini-mart, off licence, whatever - that didn’t take cards.

What would be the best estimate for the likelihood of a chicken shop being part of an organised crime syndicate?

Years ago I used to work with gambling regulators. They reckoned most pubs and social clubs were operating or hosting unlicensed betting and gaming, though usually on a small scale. Do you think the great majority of vape and chicken shops are part of criminal money laundering enterprises in a concerted fashion?

Personally, and again I defer to your expertise, I would think it very unlikely.

You sell drugs. You get the drugs from somewhere. You now have cash maybe 1000s that are on your person or in your car. How do you explain to the police if you are stopped. So the money may go back to a shop which is a front. Next time you shopping have a look how many barbers, nail salons, chicken shops vape shops there are and how busy they are.

@Rummly Those are excellent questions, I don't actually know the answer to them! I'm sure some (many?) are legitimate but you've also got massive amounts of cash that needs to go somewhere. Some of the cash will be taken overseas or used to buy stuff but talking to law enforcement about what they see the most it's the same types of businesses over and over again (not limited to chicken shops and vape shops but all kinds of similar businesses) where cash is just run through the books.

That's an interesting point about pubs/social clubs and I'm sure that's true. I never realised how big the unlicensed betting 'industry' was until I had to read about it for something at work.

Oh, and to answer your question, I doubt many of them insist on cash (although often will insist on it for low amounts; I know my local one does) but so long as they have an excuse as to why they might be depositing cash at the end of the night, that's all they need. It was quite difficult to launder cash like this in Covid!

vaping and smoking are not evenly distributed across the population. It is strongly correlated with education and income.

I can go weeks without seeing a person smoking or vaping because I live in a wealthy little bubble where the residents tend to have advanced degrees. Maybe some of them smoke, but they would never admit to it in public. You might as well tell people you kick puppies for fun. If you see someone smoking or vaping, they are typically tucked next to their work truck because they came outside to smoke while working on someone’s house.

WTAF?! 😂

Bollocks

lol, a lot of you are in thrall of Daily Mail thinking.
Generally working class point of view. The gutter press say it is so, so we believe it.
God I wish more people had education.
Mumsnet is full of upper working class oiks.

Are people really this naive?

A small vape shop suddenly appeared in our part of London a few weeks ago; there aren't that many of them, so it did seem a bit odd.

Someone I know told me he wanted to call in there to buy a vape; when I said that the Tesco he had just walked past sells vapes, he told me that he wanted to go to the small shop instead, as the owner is selling vapes really cheaply and it's a big saving if you vape.

The shop is really strange, it seems to be just boxes and boxes stacked up and a man behind a small counter. Visually, it looks really basic and unappealing.

I can't fathom how it makes a profit as I don't see many people going into it.

I would imagine that they are hoping to attract young vapers passing the shop while going to and from work.

My gut feeling is that it is one of a group of shops and that the lack of sales at this one is tolerable because the others in the group are flourishing.

I think that they buy cheap vapes in enormous quantities and hope that vapers will value the cheapness of them compared to those sold in more recognisable shops like Tesco.

🙄

You asked the people of Mumsnet why vape shops are bad news.
They answered with personal experience.
And because it doesn't fit your narrative, you call us working class oiks.

Arent you a charmer