Tobacco window display goes unnoticed by EHO

The smoking paraphernalia displayed in a shop window in Dundalk, Co Louth
The smoking paraphernalia displayed in a shop window in Dundalk, Co Louth

The CSNA discovers window display that calls into question how the HSE's Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) operate

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17 April 2012

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The revelation that a premises on a very busy trading street in a large provincial county town was able to display a full range of tobacco-related paraphernalia, including a video recorded “loop” showing how to roll your own tobacco, must call into question how the regulatory agents, particularly the HSE’s Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) operate.

 
The CSNA has asked the body charged with monitoring and enforcing compliance of the Public Health Tobacco Acts (PHTA) to explain how they seem to have allowed such a blatant and fragrant contravention of the acts to occur under their noses?
 
Retail premises for food and tobacco products are regularly inspected without warning by the EHO throughout the country in respect of compliance in food safety, food labelling, environmental health matters and tobacco control regulations. How can such activity, as public as a window display, go unnoticed by the relevant authorities?
 
Retailers and the public deserve to be informed how the officials in the offices of the various HSE/EHO departments compile their visitation regimes and whether the absence of registration by some ethnic or specialist shops is something that the offices have specific strategies to detect and inspect non-compliance matters in these types of outlets.
 
Retailers are fighting a constant battle against smugglers of tobacco; must they also fight on a new front as well?
 
The shop window had the video (illegal), cigarettes (illegal), filters (illegal), cigarette papers (illegal) and tobacco rolling equipment (illegal) all on open display.  Were any one of our members caught attempting such a level of marketing of tobacco products, we have no doubt that they would be charged with several PHTA offences, and if convicted, have their registration to sell tobacco revoked for a period of up to 30 days. 
 

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