Minors Hazard Brick & Mortar Vape Shops

Every bit far as I'yard concerned, I would much rather see teenagers using electronic cigarettes rather than existent cigarettes. Anyone that doesn't agree with that isn't living in the real world, including owners of vape shops around the globe.

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Nosotros don't need more proof that tobacco kills, and considering the ingredients that make up e liquid are beneficial, its more than a safe bet that e-cigarettes won't crusade a fraction of the damage tobacco does.

Just, the police is the law, and when it comes to e cigarettes, if you're under 18, or 21, depending on where you alive, walking into a neighborhood vape shop and ownership so much as a canteen of e-liquid can get the shop'south owner in lot of problem.

If y'all're not sure what the law is where yous alive, cheque out this report that outlines the current e-cigarette laws prohibiting sales to minors.

Teenagers walk into vape shops every mean solar day and buy electronic cigarettes, atomizers, coil wire, east liquid, and anything else they demand to relish vaping. Shop owners may retrieve they're not doing anything incorrect, or endangering minors any more than than chugging a can of Red Balderdash will, but considering local laws prohibit these sales, vape shop owners can face substantial fines and perhaps even be forced to close their doors forever. Yes, it'due south dumb, yes our priorities are messed up, but until the real truth nigh vaping is accepted by the majority, vape shop owners MUST protect themselves. Trust me.

Vape Shops –  Owners and Managers

Most vape shops in the United States and the Uk practise not expect like VapeRev or Vaporshark. They are not one thousand thousand dollar stores with state-of-the-art registers jacked into the net, they don't accept surveillance cameras recording every transaction. Nope, the bulk of the vape shops are mom and pop operations, with simple greenbacks registers and no planning. That means no real fashion to safeguard their investment when it comes to selling to minors.

Most shops are little more than holes in the wall… small-scale, cramped, strip mall locations staffed with vape enthusiasts who, allow's exist real, wouldn't mind selling vape gear and e liquid to a twelve-year-quondam to make the rent. Thankfully most shop owners won't practise it, the risk is also high, only employees on the other hand, just might.

A shop owner might have his or her life savings wrapped upwardly in that hole-in-the-wall vape shop, merely someone that took the job at a vape store just to be close to all that cool gear and the opportunity to 'sample' all kinds of e juice for free, that employee might very well make the sale to a twelve-year-old, for no other reason than to make sure his or her boss can make side by side month's rent.

How do I know this? Why would I make such a breathy remark that will surely anger many of the vape shop owners and employees that read Spinfuel? Considering I was that vape shop possessor, and because of an employee made a habit out of selling products to anyone that walks in the door, without regard to age, I lost my store, my savings, and now I piece of work for one of the big vape shop chains selling starter kits.

Making Choices

Vape shops are witnessing a massive influx of teenagers interested in taking up the hobby of vaping. They stroll into the shop, spend upwardly of an 60 minutes just looking around, picking things up, putting them downward, all the while becoming more and more enamored with the idea of vaping. Almost kids won't ever selection up a cigarette, merely the ones who will are now considering something much safer. These kids volition either fume or vape, and fifty-fifty though we ALL would rather see those kids pick up a prissy box modernistic, tank, and a bottle of e juice, the law says that if we allow it in our shops nosotros're toast. And so until local laws modify your just selection equally a store owner is to make certain you and your employees are not selling to kids. Catamenia.

Cheque ID'southward – Not Enough Anymore

Eliminating the sale of vape gear and e juice to minors should exist your #ane priority as a store possessor, despite its potential effect on your bottom line.

In my store I had a rule; if the customer looks like he or she 'might' be under the age of 21, menu the customer. No exceptions. My iii employees all agreed to check ID's, and they all told me, in no uncertain terms, that they understood the cost of beingness busted for selling to a minor. Talk is cheap.

For ii years my shop provided me and my family with a great life. I had a knack for picking the right products, I kept my prices simply a tiny fleck higher than the online vendors, and I made sure my employees treated everyone with respect, and answered their questions with honesty. Everything was happening exactly equally I dreamed information technology would. Until information technology didn't.

"It was a dark and stormy nighttime…"

One night I was at the shop, in the back, doing paperwork. Every time the doorbell above the door would tinkle I would know a customer had come in, and that night the number of 'tinkles' told me my business was truly successful. I couldn't have been more proud of myself, my wife for assertive I could practice it, and my iii employees who busted their asses to help make this work. It was supposed to be a swell night.

While I was doing paperwork I heard the voices of a couple of men. They didn't sound like customers, that 'excitement' in the voice of my customers was not in that location and instead there was this deep tone of seriousness. They were cops, and they had bad news.

Turns out some teenager, close to 18, had been a customer of my shop for almost a twelvemonth, and the previous day his mom had discovered his collection of gear and e juice and believed her son was doing drugs. I don't have all the information, there wasn't a lawsuit, in that location wasn't a trial of any kind. All that came out of that night was "repeated violations for selling to underage customers". The fines solitary wiped me out, the publicity in the local paper killed my rep. I airtight up less than a month later. My inventory was purchased by my friendly rival, a friend I helped prepare across town.

Lessons Learned the Difficult Way

I won't open some other shop again. I won't work for this chain store much longer either. Luckily for me, my BS in criminal justice got me into the constabulary academy, my original life goal before I discovered vaping. I start afterward this year, so I gauge it'due south a happy ending for me… Maybe.

I asked Spinfuel to allow me this opportunity to tell this story considering if y'all own a vape shop or work in a vape shop you lot need to understand the stakes. Selling to minors may seem okay, similar yous're actually saving this kid from a life cutting short by tobacco, but what you lot're really doing is endangering your shop, your life, and your employees' jobs. You need to brand sure y'all are doing more than than looking at a Commuter's License the next time a youthful looking customer comes upwardly to the register.

I trusted my employees to make the right decision every fourth dimension. What I didn't practise is gear up a system that would accept away the temptation to sell to a minor, and that's what you need to do. I can't tell y'all exactly what you demand, merely I can tell you what I would exercise if I could become dorsum in time.

  1. Necktie every sale to an ID check. If it went through the register information technology must accept basic ID info. Maybe the Driver's License number, maybe a copy of the license, something has to tie in to every sale so you can personally check them the next 24-hour interval.
  2. See if your land has any information on checking the validity of a person's ID. If the ID has a barcode or something, see if in that location is anything bachelor that tin scan information technology to brand sure its valid (Is at that place an app for that?). Imitation ID's are getting really good, and inexpensive.
  3. Have a Zero Tolerance policy for selling to minors. Fifty-fifty if your employee is your BFF, violating the policy ways losing the task.
  4. Take this shit seriously. State and local officials are probably gunning for your shop. They'd love nothing more than to see it closed upwardly. Know this. Believe this. Don't give them the alibi they need.

What Practice You Do?

While I was a vape shop owner I ran a friendly shop and never hassled my customers. I treated my employees similar friends, because they were. And I never thought at that place was a real possibility of beingness forced to close my store over some teenager looking to stay off tobacco with due east-cigarettes. That was the worst affair to go over; my shop did a good thing, and I lost it because of it.

Without the pick of vaping, a sure pct of teenagers WIL L smoke. It's always been that style and it ever will exist. But offering a safer alternative can make a departure. Every bit long as the constabulary says we can't offer that culling, you have no pick. When it comes to who wins, your store or your local government, yous'll lose every fourth dimension.

Let'south talk nearly this. What are you lot doing at present to protect yourself from selling to minors? Share your experiences, and your solutions (or bug) and mayhap, just mayhap, we can brand sure no ane else has to lose their store over this kind of error.

Eric Casey – Ex-Vape Shop Owner