Why do councils approve so many vape shops on the high street?

[JoyousOpalLemur]

Am I the only one completely baffled by this? I walked down my high street yesterday and another new vape (and sweets) shop has opened. There are now four vape shops that have opened in the last two years! They all seem to be permanently empty.

Why are councils granting planning permission for these shops?

One of the lead stories on the BBC last week was about how at least half of vape shops are linked to organised crime, particularly people and drug smuggling, and money laundering. Apparently many of the vapes they sell are also illegal and many sell tobacco to children.

It's not just the vape shops, three Turkish barbers have opened in the last decade (usually half empty), and three nail bars (to be fair, they tend to be quite busy) since Covid, which also have well known links to laundering the money made from people smuggling.

If councils are so keen on regeneration and local economies, why approve change-of-use for businesses that research shows are disproportionately tied to serious crime? Legitimate businesses are struggling, while these cash-heavy operations seem to get a free pass.

With also several young male Uber Eats riders parked down the high street, it doesn't feel a particularly safe space anymore.

Do councils even consider the crime angle when approving these applications, or is it just about filling empty units at any cost?

TIA for any insights or experiences.

It would be a good start but none of that is evidence to charge someone. It's not an offence to have a business and a criminal record so what offence do you think you would charge someone with using that information? It's also not difficult to forge documents and identities to make workers look legitimate. The issue with this type of crime is that it's really difficult to legislate against it.

Then they lose customers. Some people might be happy to be inconvenienced by a small business owner but in reality, why would they be?

If you have made the effort to potentially give your business to them, only to find out they have had to go home because their child is sick or whatever, you aren’t likely to give them a second chance.

It’s quicker and more reliable to order online. The only way any business survives progress is to adapt and find a niche. The high street is a thing of the past in most towns and cities now.

@Trainstrike

Yes, it is just a start and an example of how the authorities could draw from multiple areas to build a picture. If there is a sufficient basis for further investigation, then the police can use the have wider powers they already have to collect evidence. It could be evidence establishing links between the individuals involved and people trafficking, evidence of tax evasion, evidence of money laundering, links between individuals involved in crime and so forth. At least where I live, this activity seems to be linked and I don’t think we are dealing with mastermind geniuses, just people who know they can get away with it.

I’m not saying the police would go on Companies House, run a few google searches and then be able to shut it all down, but of course criminal investigations can happen and uncover fraud and wrongdoing. We know this is possible because, for all their flaws politically, the US has been excellent and identifying and prosecuting organised crime. They take a very hard stance with identifying and seizing assets in the most complicated of scenarios and I do have some firsthand know of that.

Yep, relatively easy to do, is the reason it is not being done due to the ethnicity of most of the people running the shops?

So if two plainclothes cops sat in a car and filmed/observed a shop with two guys sitting in it all day long with their phones out and maybe two or three customers a day wandering in, then matched that with a declared turnover of many thousands of pounds, isn"t that evidence of something, or is the surveillance illegal ? The fact that the people in the shop will soon twig that they are being observed also adds a layer of discomfort to their day?

It would be evidence of a massive waste of police time.

@KeepPumping

I think it is to do with resource. Local authorities can’t do this and it requires using teams with specific training and powers. But imagine what specialist units could achieve with investment! I expect these criminal groups are using the same methods, just multiplied across the country. Investigations would not need to involve reinventing the wheel each time. This requires the political will to invest in actually combating these groups.

Also, imagine if one of the political parties really campaigned for this. Task forces to get organised crime off the high street, with a costed long term plan to achieve this. I would vote for that.

That’s one way to look at it.

The other way is that if you want the high street to continue to exist in any shape or form, that will involve additional inconvenience and expense, buying from humans not automated Amazon “delivery machines” that have harsh targets on drivers and stock pickers etc, and which undercut everyone else’s profit margin.

I understand your point and I am a frequent Amazon and Tesco shopper myself. But if I can possibly pop back another day to the shop with a back in 10 mins sign, or buy a signed copy from a local author at a nearby indie bookshop, then I am (somewhat) helping the high street to remain more populated with shops I would like to browse, visit, use.

@WildWindySeascape

Labour will not do anything about this. Will the conservatives? Or do we have to vote for the dreadful Reform party to remove organised crime from our high streets?

What do you think of the Tobacco and Vapes Law, introduced by Labour, which does allow for a retail licensing scheme to be introduced for vape shops. I linked it upthread.

@SheilaFentiman

I think it’s a brilliant start. I don’t know if it will succeed but I hope it has a positive impact

I do wonder if the hesitation in shuttering these illegitimate businesses is due to the perceived racial implications. Takeaways, vape shops, Turkish barbers, mini marts and nail bars blight every high street overwhelmingly, there’s some serious flaws in the system if there’s a large majority exploiting loopholes as fronts for criminality.

Where exactly is the cash that’s being laundered coming from? Is it really a national network of underworld crime lords that have proliferated every town and city in the country?

Its all about the business rates. Get that cash in.

That's exactly what HMRC used to do. There are cases of fast food places being "observed" to count the number of customers which are then compared with their declared turnover. Likewise, one of my clients back in the 80s was a pub and they had a tax enquiry where a local tax inspector actually sat in the pub and counted customers, counted the number of people using the pool table, counted the number of people using the cigarette machine, etc., and at a future time, compared his "data" with the declared takings. Another tax inspector made notes of funerals in the local paper, and found where the deceased had been declared to be living prior to their death, and then started enquiries into several local old folks homes, and discovered some of them had, say, 10 residents, but only declared income from 8 or 9. It wasn't just the tax revenue raised (which was usually pretty large!), it was the fact that people knew they were doing such things so were less likely to "fiddle" their own taxes.

The likes of vape shops, hand car washes, turkish barbers, dodgy kebab shops, ethnic nail bars, ethnic specialty food shops, know that the chances of being investigated are low so it's worth a risk to undeclare takings, or wash dirty money, or employ illegals or sell fake/counterfeit goods.

We could make a massive difference dialling back the years and get back to local tax inspectors "observing" what's going on in their patch. Same with police really too - too many just driving around in cars oblivious to the reality of street life.

This! Looking forward to devolution!

@Nutmuncher money laundering for people smuggling, drugs and illegal goods. Ordinary businesses can’t stay open with no customers and so I believe the empty / near empty vape shops, mini marts and barbers are connected to crime.

I was also wrong to say there is no plan to solve this. Labour do have a plan. It’s just that I struggle to believe they will put the resources needed behind it, especially as they have failed to ‘smash’ the people smuggling gangs as Starmer promised.

www.gov.uk/government/news/new-laws-to-shutdown-dodgy-high-street-shops-in-crime-crackdown#:~:text=Dodgy%20vape%20shops%2C%20barbers%20and,bars%20in%20a%20nationwide%20crackdown.&text=Dodgy%20shops%20will%20be%20forced,be%20introduced%20later%20this%20year.

@Nutmuncher

As for where the illegally obtained money is from, this is a helpful article: www.amlintelligence.com/2026/05/news-uk-says-1bn-a-year-laundered-through-vape-shops-and-barbers/

It would be good to know which business fronts which criminal activity the most, where the drugs money is funnelled into primarily or the people trafficking. If cash is being laundered through these fronts then surely the banking receipts would make for interesting reading.

Not this! As per the majority of posts replying to the OP about where the council fits in legally!

Yep, it would be interesting to see a return to actual physical police work where they make their presence known, same for HMRC etc. as you say.

Maybe the extra police from Johnson’s tenure could step in.

Oh, wait…

www.bbc.co.uk/news/57987932

Devolution means local authorities will have more power though? Which I agree is better, but probably not for those who are claiming LAs are corrupt like the post you're responding to. Unless I've interrupted everything incorrectly that is.

Then there are the ones that are bankrupt - devolution is not going to be great for most people outside of the North and London

Well more government = more potential for corruption

You have to question….when does complete incompetence become a grift?