Health professionals last night condemned the menace of rogue shopkeepers who are hooking children into smoking by selling them individual cigarettes.

The warning comes after a Bradford shop owner was fined following a ‘sting’ operation by Trading Standards officers.

Adalat Khan, who runs Zayn’s General Store in New Cross Street, Marshfields, received a £200 fine and was ordered to pay £900 in costs by the city’s magistrates after a single cigarette was sold for 40p to a 15-year-old boy at his premises.

During a routine inspection, officers at West Yorkshire Trading Standards had found evidence cigarettes were being sold individually, the court was told.

They had issued the trader with advice and a warning about sales of single cigarettes to under-18s before carrying out the test purchase operation using the schoolboy.

After the case, Graham Hebblethwaite, West Yorkshire’s chief Trading Standards Officer, warned that sales of single cigarettes were a growing problem.

He said: “It is generally independent retailers who offer for sale single cigarettes either to socially-excluded people or, in the worst case scenarios, to children.

“It’s often in deprived areas that we find this sort of action going on because people can’t afford to buy a £6 packet of cigarettes.

“This service is determined to reduce the number of underage sales of cigarettes to minors and will continue to take legal action against the minority of traders who run premises where children can purchase cigarettes. Making cigarettes more available to children by selling them singly is unacceptable”.

Greg Fell, public health consultant for NHS Bradford and Airedale, said protecting children and young adults from starting to smoke was particularly important.

He said: “We see prevention, alongside stopping smoking, as a priority, so it is important for us to tell young people about the serious danger that smoking can do to them. We want to get the message out that smoking is anything but cool.

“The legal age to buy tobacco stands at 18. Retailers who persistently offend should have appropriate sanctions to prevent further offences, even if this means a ban on them selling tobacco in the future.

“Above all, we need to continually raise the understanding of children, through appropriate educational methods and awareness raising, about the serious dangers to health of smoking.”

  • Read the full story in Wednesday's T&A