A vape and phone repair shop has opened next to the Mackintosh Tearooms in Glasgow, the last surviving tearoom designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, prompting fire safety concerns from residents and heritage campaigners.
The new shopfront, with hot-pink capital letters on a white plastic sign, appeared last week beside the 1903 category A-listed building in the city centre. The opening comes six months after a fire in a vape shop destroyed the B-listed Union Corner building, and almost a decade after a blaze devastated the Mackintosh-designed Glasgow School of Art building in 2018.
Fire safety concerns raised
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service confirmed after the Union Corner fire that it had started in a vape shop. A subsequent audit of other vape shops found a range of fire safety issues, including a lack of awareness about legislation and fire safety duties.
Matthew Williams, director of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society, said the increased fire risk posed by a vape shop next door was "completely unacceptable". The society has called on Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government to halt the shop's opening, which sits within the Sauchiehall Street culture and heritage district.
"The Mackintosh Tearooms are an architecture and design gem, an important part of Glasgow's story and a real boost for tourism in the city," Williams said. "The increased risk of fire posed by a vape shop next door is completely unacceptable."
Cultural tragedy warning
The society noted that the street is also home to the C-listed ABC music venue, which burned down in the 2018 art school fire, and the Centre for Contemporary Arts, which closed this year after financial troubles. Williams warned of a "further cultural tragedy" if the tearooms were to catch fire, urging politicians and officials to "act without delay".
Sarah Thomas, 32, who moved to Glasgow in the early 2010s to study at the art school, said the loss of that building was "a heartbreak that the city can't go through again". She added: "It's hard to understand how a shop filled with flammables can be allowed to open next to a listed building full of historical artefacts. It does make you despair a bit."
Regulation gaps and political response
Glasgow City Council said the premises had long been granted permission to operate as a shop, and there is no licensing framework for vape shops in Scotland. After the Union Corner fire, the council urged the Scottish Government to strengthen regulation, but Holyrood said planning decisions were the responsibility of the local authority.
Paul Sweeney, a Labour MSP for Glasgow, called in March for a ban on vape shops in historic buildings. Speaking of the new unit, he said he was "astonished the government hasn't [already] responded with more urgency" on planning reform, adding that similar scenarios could play out across the city.
Glasgow School of Art, which had previously committed to a faithful restoration of the Mackintosh building, said in July it would not be able to complete the project without further financial support. The Union Corner site is expected to be brought back into use this year, but a new permanent structure is not expected until 2031.
Artistic protest
Street artist Ashley Rawson responded to the new shop last week by visiting with his "unexploded vape" artwork, a sculpture depicting a metre-long vape labelled "burnt heritage flavour", first produced after the Union Corner fire. In an Instagram video set to Billy Joel's 1989 hit We Didn't Start the Fire, Rawson said: "Is this really the Sauchiehall Street heritage approach that we're looking for? Aren't we learning from Union Corner, from the art school? I just don't know, it's a bit flabbergasting."
