An update from ModNVape

We can't lie, things are getting tough in the store. The vaping duty will make things more expensive, the Government's new DHSC consultation will require a complete overhaul of the shop.  We're going to be hit the hardest whilst the targets of the duty will remain open. We're planning the best we can for everything and aim to still be here in the next few years, but we've had to make some tough decisions in the shop. We cut back on our staff, extended our hours, even the boss has stepped in and worked days where she hasn't paid herself a wage which is atrocious for a business supporting as many customers as we do.

Another big change coming is that our online store will be "closing". 

The website won't disappear, but it will be "read only" so you can see the kind of things we have in store, but just can't pay for it online. You can still phone us up and order or pop into the store, but you won't be able to pay for anything. 

This isn't a choice we make easily, but one we've been pushed towards by the nature of e-commerce. Our current payment provider is no longer supporting vaping products, the alternative they tell us to switch to is taking a much bigger cut of our already low prices and slim margin. The charge we face for even integrating our stock levels between our systems is going up. We don't want to put those extra charges onto you, so we'd rather cut that cost that indulge these companies extorting a small business like us. 

The government's open consultation on vaping. 

The government, as brilliant as usual, is talking about applying the same restrictions tobacco has inside all shops. That means plain white packaging, warning labels, single word flavours, and having to put screens up in front of the vapes. 

It's a bit silly, isn't it? In a corner store maybe it's a good idea. But in a vape shop? Nobody walks into a vape shop by accident. If a kid wanders in we tell them to bugger off as it's an over-18s shop. Why should we have to hide our stock when we have blacked out windows and a door, deny kids if they try to enter and challenge 25 at every occasion? To add to this they want to restrict flavour names to single words. So "Mr Blue" will become "Blue" or "iced berries" will become "berries".  Like, what? 

Plus what warnings can they put on e-liquid? It's addictive? They already have those labels, the bright red warnings. They can't even concretely say if vaping has any long lasting effects - the same reason we say vaping is a 99.5% healthier alternative smoking is that we have no long term studies done (in the UK at least). 

We ask one thing of you. Send an e-mail to your MP.

It's harsh to say, but not entirely unfair, that your local MP is quite misinformed about the vaping industry. Just like the common person it's easy for them to understand all vape shops as dodgy "American candy" shops or the corner shops that keep getting raided for selling very illegal things. They know little of the community shops like us, the stop smoking specialists, the people who care and genuinely want to help. We spoke to Lee Barron, MP for East Northants & Corby, who was quite shocked to see what we offered and who we were. But the voice of one in a crowd is quiet, the voice of everyone is unmistakable. 

All we ask, then, is that you find your local mp.

Send them an e-mail, it doesn't have to be wordy or anything that takes over five minutes, just say to them what you think and what you feel. Tell them that it's silly to do the things they're doing. Tell them how it will effect you from your health, your wallet and your community. Tell them that vapes should only be sold in brick and mortar vape shops. Ask them to reconsider a flat duty on e-liquid; a tiered system based on nicotine content would make far more sense, as why should someone smoking the equivalent of twenty cigarettes a week be charged as much as someone smoking twenty a day? 

We're hoping we can keep serving the community for years to come. We've made plans to keep the business running, but the way things are going we're feeling a squeeze that puts another shop on the high street under threat. If we close down the black market grows in our absence. The black market does not discriminate in the face of the profit. Kids, dodgy vapes, banned e-liquids, imported THC or dodgy tobacco; it will fill a spot we create by being evicted. The financial burden grows, health declines, risks become more severe. 

If the government was really doing this to tackle "youth vaping" why would they encourage a black market to flourish whilst honest people are made to suffer?