{"id":8348,"date":"2018-06-13T16:31:57","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T15:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=8348"},"modified":"2018-06-13T16:31:57","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T15:31:57","slug":"thousands-of-pounds-worth-of-illegal-tobacco-seized-in-tower-hamlets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/thousands-of-pounds-worth-of-illegal-tobacco-seized-in-tower-hamlets\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of pounds worth of illegal tobacco seized in Tower Hamlets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8349\" src=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Tobacco.jpg\" alt=\"Tobacco\" width=\"288\" height=\"165\" \/>Tower Hamlets Council&#8217;s Trading Standards Officers and detection dogs found \u00a38,000 worth of illegal tobacco hidden inside cereal boxes, coat pockets and behind display panels during a recent two-day operation.<br \/>\nOfficers found illegal products in 10 of the 18 premises visited.<br \/>\nOverall 12,360 cigarettes, 2,250g of hand-rolling tobacco and 68 pots of chewing tobacco were seized.<br \/>\nThe raids were part of Operation Stromboli, which aims to stop the sale of counterfeit, incorrectly labelled and non-duty paid tobacco and alcohol in Tower Hamlets.<br \/>\nAccording to the law, cigarettes must be sold in minimum quantities of 20s with plain (olive green) packaging and prescribed health warnings.<br \/>\nJohn Biggs, Mayor of Tower Hamlets said, \u201cTower Hamlets has a zero tolerance approach to businesses and people who make no significant effort to comply with the law &#8211; or those who deliberately choose to ignore it.<br \/>\n\u201cWhile all smoking kills, illegal tobacco is a particular health risk, particularly to children and young people, as it is sold at pocket money prices. It also encourages and often funds other crimes in our communities.<br \/>\n\u201cThis is a fantastic result for Operation Stromboli. It sends a clear message to people selling illegal tobacco \u2013 we will not stand for people selling it within our borough.\u201d<br \/>\nCllr Asma Begum, Deputy Mayor for Community Safety and Equalities said, \u201cWe are committed to protecting our residents by seizing illegal tobacco. We will not tolerate people ignoring the law and remain committed to getting illegal products off of our streets.\u201d<br \/>\nResidents who need help to stop smoking or using Paan should contact the BME Stop Tobacco Project on 020 7882 8669 (women) or 020 7882 8660 (men).<br \/>\nFurther information is available at www.nhs.uk\/smokefree<\/p>\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\r\n<script>(function(d, s, id) {\r\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\r\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\r\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\r\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_GB\/all.js#xfbml=1\";\r\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\r\n}(document, \"script\", \"facebook-jssdk\"));<\/script>\r\n <fb:comments href=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/thousands-of-pounds-worth-of-illegal-tobacco-seized-in-tower-hamlets\/\" font=\"arial\" num_posts=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" colorscheme=\"light\"  style=\"background:#FFFFFF;padding-top:0px;\r\npadding-right:0px;\r\npadding-bottom:0px;\r\npadding-left:0px;\r\nmargin-top:0px;\r\nmargin-right:0px;\r\nmargin-bottom:0px;\r\nmargin-left:0px;\r\n\"><\/fb:comments>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tower Hamlets Council&#8217;s Trading Standards Officers and detection dogs found \u00a38,000 worth of illegal tobacco hidden inside cereal boxes, coat pockets and behind display panels during a recent two-day operation. Officers found illegal products in 10 of the 18 premises visited. Overall 12,360 cigarettes, 2,250g of hand-rolling tobacco and 68 pots of chewing tobacco were &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8348"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8350,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8348\/revisions\/8350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}