A butcher has been fined £1,800 after becoming the first person in Scotland to be convicted of breaching an order banning him from selling tobacco.
John Truten was slapped with a maximum two-year ban in September 2015 after clocking up £4,000-worth of fixed penalty notices for selling illicit tobacco from the Meat Market store in Glasgow’s Easterhouse district. Tobacco control officers had made several test purchases over a two-year period.
However, a tip-off the following summer led to the seizure of 2,000 cigarettes and 20 pouches of tobacco from the premises.
Truten was handed the four-figure fine after pleading guilty to flouting the banning order at Glasgow Sheriff Court in January this year. The seized tobacco was ordered to be destroyed.
Besides selling illicit tobacco, Truten hadn’t registered with the Scottish Government’s tobacco retail register. Unsurprisingly, given the nature of his dodgy dealings, the butcher also hadn’t bothered to display the required notice concerning the sale of tobacco products to under-18s.
Speaking to the Evening Times newspaper, Neil Coltart, Glasgow City Council’s Trading Standards Manager, said: “When tobacco control officers went to the shop it was obvious there was under the counter selling and they saw people coming out with cartons of cigarettes in plastic bags.”
