Undercover councillor experiences the complexity of illegal tobacco sales in Tower Hamlets

12.51.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 3rd Dec 2007

Checking this premise is compliant with the new legislation

Chair of the Health Scrutiny Committee, the Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, Councillor Dr Stephanie Eaton has been going 'undercover' with officers from Tower Hamlets Environmental Health and Trading Standards Teams. She tells the story of what she found.

"As Chair of the Health Scrutiny Panel and a Councillor for Bethnal Green North, the ward in Tower Hamlets which has the lowest life expectancy, I know that the number one priority for improving the health of our residents is to reduce reliance on tobacco. This means not only tackling smoking but also looking at reducing the use of chewing tobacco, included in Paan, which is used by many Bangladeshi members of our community.

Part of the research for the report which I will be writing focuses on the enforcement efforts of the Officers from Tower Hamlets Council, and our partners in the Police, Customs and Excise and the Home Office Nationality and Immigration Department. In order to gain a better understanding of the issues that officers face, I asked to accompany them on some enforcement visits.

I asked firstly to check on the effectiveness of the workplace smoking ban which came in on July 1, 2007 and this involved going out with S, a young Environmental Health officer to visit pubs, bars, nightclubs, restaurants, shops and offices in the Whitechapel and Brick Lane areas. People were a little reticent when we identified ourselves as being from the Council, but once we explained what we were doing we got some interesting reactions. In pubs, generally the owners/managers and staff welcomed the ban, but we had some fairly robust exchanges with a few of the customers, who used some direct language to outline their opposition to the ban. They complained of what they saw as an infringement of their civil liberties, perhaps knowing instinctively that this argument would resonate with my political beliefs. But S was terrific at explaining the purpose of the legislation and despite the 'banter' he even managed to leave the NHS quit smoking information in all the premises we visited. The majority of managers said that they had experienced very little resistance from customers. The main problem appeared to be from those pubs which had no outside space for patrons to use who wished to smoke, who felt they were losing trade to pubs with beer gardens. In one of the cosier bars off Brick Lane we chatted to the owner and found ourselves being invited back for a drink when we were off duty.

From a different angle, Trading Standards officer J took me around the street markets looking for contraband and counterfeit tobacco. Our undercover work was made harder by the fact that J was well known to the sellers and also, as I pointed out to him, he looked like an ex-cop (he isn't!). We also had to cope with driving rain and wind which would have deterred even the hardiest smoker. Despite the conditions, we found some illegal sellers of cigarettes, and ended up with a fair stash in our evidence bag. I'll be sending it off to a laboratory for analysis as some counterfeit cigarettes can contain seriously toxic ingredients. One of the more interesting elements of this work was talking to the sellers when J wasn't around about their reasons for working in this illegal trade. It turns out that many of the sellers are Kurdish Iraqis who are in this country as asylum seekers. They are not allowed to work so turn to the black market economy to make some money. I asked one how much he earns from the work and he said about £40 a day. He lives in a house where the people sleep four to a room and claims his life would be in danger if he was sent back to Iraq. I'll be doing some research and thinking about the problems of asylum seekers over the coming weeks as a result of my conversations with these guys. Interestingly, the illegal cigarette sellers all knew and were on good terms with the Police. One of the difficulties the police have in dealing with the sellers that there is not sufficient space in the Borough's custody units for the processing of arrested illegal traders. The Police officers urged me to raise markets policing as an under-resourced policing activity with the Borough Commander, and I will.

Undercover Councillor displays some chewing tobacco purchased on Brick Lane

Having got thoroughly wet walking about the markets and chatting with the cigarette sellers, but also keeping an eye on the dodgy DVD sellers, bike sellers, and learning about the wide range of counterfeit goods available, many of which seemed to involve personal care items such as toothbrushes, razor blades and condoms, J and I headed to the Paan shops.Not surprisingly, we found that many of the products on sale were not appropriately labelled as tobacco products. From the work the Health Scrutiny Committee has done so far we feel there is a gap in the information that is available to the sellers and users of Paan about the risks that chewing tobacco poses to health. As some of the Paan products are packaged in a similar way to sweets, the Committee is also concerned about the potential for children to be introduced to a lifetime of tobacco use through Paan. A small pouch that I purchased cost £3.99 and like the cigarettes, it will be sent off to the the lab for analysis. The pouch had a warning about tobacco use in the tiniest writing and I am confident that it is not lawful to sell it without the appropriate sized warnings but we'll be getting confirmation from the legal team.

So, it was a fascinating exercise, and I valued the chance to see the excellent work of the officers in enforcing legislation, promoting smoking cessation, and policing the Borough. Trading Standards face an almost impossible job to stop the sale of counterfeit and contraband goods - the arrest of sellers and the seizure of goods disrupts the activity but cannot hope to stop it. While there is a demand for cheap cigarettes there will be a market to supply that demand. I hope that the work of the Trading Standards officers in publicising the added dangers of smoking these counterfeit cigarettes will make our smoking residents think about where and how they purchase their cigarettes... and even better, that the work of Environmental Health officers will encourage more residents to quit using tobacco at all."