Border tobacco smuggling ‘could shut 15 per cent of corner shops’

A burgeoning tobacco smuggling trade in Northern Ireland is threatening to close one in seven corner shops in the region, new research has indicated.

Cheaper cigarette prices elsewhere in Europe makes the region a magnet for criminals looking to undercut legitimate traders and has left almost 200 of 1,300 store owners contemplating pulling the shutters down for good, according to the study by the Tobacco Retailers’ Alliance (TRA).

Around 15 per cent of corner shop/convenience store owners now believe they are under threat of closure — more than double the 6 per cent reported in a similar survey by the Alliance last year.

The latest TRA assessment of the trade found that more than a third of businesses (35 per cent) have considered laying off staff.

The TRA claims high taxation on tobacco products in Britain makes the country attractive for smugglers, noting that of the average £8 cost (€9.20) for a packet of 20 cigarettes, more than £6 of it is tax.

Criminals selling a pack of cigarettes for half the retail price can still make a higher profit than legal traders, the organisation said.

Ballymena shopkeeper John McKeown, the Northern Ireland spokesman for the TRA, said: “These results show that tobacco smuggling is not only a threat to the livelihoods of independent retailers but one that continues to worsen,” he said.

“The high levels of tax on tobacco mean that a smuggler selling at half the price I charge will make more money selling his tobacco here than almost anywhere else in the EU.

“The government needs to allow tax levels in the other member countries to catch up with those in the UK so that smugglers do not see the UK as the most profitable place to ply their illegal trade.”

PA