HIGH-strength vape pens “intended for the US market” have been seized and taken off sale across Stockton.

Disposable e-cigarettes have to conform to regulations limiting their size and concentrations of nicotine.

But Andrea Gledhill, from Stockton Council’s trading standards team, revealed some checks had found devices in breach of the rules.

The officer told Tuesday’s Home Safety Association there were many products on sale at the moment “not intended for the UK market”.

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Ms Gledhill said: “There are strict requirements in relation to the capacity of single use vape products and the amount of nicotine they can contain.

“Lots of products intended for the US market are a lot stronger and have big capacities.

“We’ve been removing them from sale by seizing them, or asking shopkeepers to voluntarily surrender them.”

Safety worries about the high nicotine levels, incorrect labelling, and lithium batteries were linked to the illicit vape pens.

Ms Gledhill added underage sales were also a concern.

“They are quite often brightly coloured and they have fruit flavours arguably intended to be marketed toward children, which isn’t good as they’re for over 18s only.

“We’ve been doing quite a bit of work and seized quite a lot to take them off sale.”

Regulations state e-cigarettes should have tanks of a capacity of no more than 2ml – with liquids having a nicotine strength of no more than 20mg/ml.

But one product – the Geek Pro Bar – was named at the meeting as “causing a problem”.

“It’s much stronger than products which should be on sale in the UK,” added Ms Gledhill.

However, the official did have some sympathy with traders.

She said: “I think sometimes, to be fair to the retailers, they bought this product not realising that they shouldn’t be putting them on sale.

“The issue needs to be tackled not just on a local level but at a wholesale level as well.

“We’re trying to identify where everyone has bought them from so we can refer those cases back to the authorities where the wholesalers are based so they can try and tackle it at source if possible.”

But the panel heard more action could be taken if some stores didn’t heed warnings.

“If we go back to places, they’ve restocked and bought the same products again then we’ll tackle that with a different approach to what we’ve used so far,” added Ms Gledhill.

“We’ll look at closure orders for the shops.”

Asked about dodgy or counterfeit toys with Christmas looming, the committee heard nothing of concern had worried trading standards teams yet.

An update on vape pens is due to come to the committee next year.

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