Closure Orders: Why we use them

Last week, we posted about the excellent work being carried out across Boston and South Holland Police to address the criminality associated with the sale of illegal tobacco products and vapes.

After our Facebook post we noticed that questions were being raised as to why we use Closure Orders, when these shops might potentially reopen again in 3 months, and potentially continue trading thereafter. You may be interested to learn that we are proactively looking to extend some of these recent closures as we speak.

Inspector Matt Dickinson explains the reasons and benefits behind imposing Closure Orders on premises selling such products. 

"I wanted to take this opportunity to share that, naturally, we acknowledge there is always the risk of those acting in this way will open up elsewhere.  However, what is perhaps not understood is that we can also extend those closures by a further three months*. These extensions give us time to work on problem solving approaches with our partners internally and externally, i.e., Trading Standards, Immigration, the Local Authority, Police Licencing Teams as well as Local Policing Teams to reduce this antisocial behaviour and associated crime.

"There is often a bigger picture behind the scenes of those illicit shops.  Some people might just think it's about the selling of illegal substances and the obvious health implications of these products not being subject to the stringent tests we expect for items sold in this country. Actually, the wider backstory often includes other offences linking back to organised crime groups operating from a distance.

"Associated crime and community impact might include:

• Human trafficking: People working in those shops may have been found to have been trafficked and dragged into criminality by those focused on profit making. The people who are driving these sorts of schemes are often not in the shops themselves. The people within the shops are quite often victims in their own right.  They can be vulnerable and also need to be supported and helped, which is why we take the action that we do.
• Money laundering and tax offences: this not only damages the stability and growth of legitimate local businesses, but can fund further organised criminal activity.
• Hindering prosperity of legitimate local business:  legitimate business owners say they cannot get the shop spaces due to these operators monopolising the majority of available properties.
• The significant health and safety implications linked to these illegal tobacco and vape products: We have seen house fires caused by illegal cigarettes which do not have the standard ‘burn-out’ design of legally validated tobacco products which will self-extinguish after a certain amount of time if left.  Plus, remember, the chemicals found in these products have not passed the stringent quality control processes that we demand for all products sold in the UK either.

"I reiterate that, for Lincolnshire Police and our partner agencies, this is a really important and serious issue to tackle.  This is not only a public health issue, this is a larger, more complex criminal issue that we are tackling head on. 

"My message, once again, to those who want to operate these illegal shops and take advantage of the local community by selling cheap but dangerous counterfeit products is, 'we will deal with you, we will deal with you robustly. We will use every piece of legislation that's available to prosecute you and hit you where it hurts. We will hit your pockets; we will close your shops and we will look to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.'"

*Statement amended: Closures can be extended by three months, not three to six months as previously reported.