Comedian Jacob Hawley has backed Andy Burnham's proposed crackdown on rogue vape shops, saying the PM should "throw the book at them." Hawley, who has long campaigned against dodgy retailers, welcomed plans to give councils more powers to block such shops and reverse the decline of town centres.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Star, Hawley said: "100% it's a good move by Burnham, its something that effects people every day as they walk to the train station or drive home."
Burnham's plans for high street
Burnham has announced a clampdown on garish vape and fast food shops. Downing Street said councils will be given the ability to refuse new betting and 24-hour slot machine shops on the high street. The formal definition of a vape shop will be tightened to stop businesses sidestepping the rules by claiming to be a "convenience store or a retailer."
Hawley, who hosts the Screen Rot podcast with Jake Farrell, added: "You see these ugly little pop ups with people sat inside doing nothing and taking home more money than you do often while committing crime. It gets people down. A lot of these places are money laundering, avoiding tax, using the premises as a way of getting dodgy visas to essentially people traffic, or even selling drugs."
Links to organised crime
As many as half of convenience stores and vape retailers in some areas are estimated to have links with organised crime, according to a Trading Standards report. Hawley said: "If this was happening in America the FBI would be on the case. Except here its underfunded councils sending little old council workers round with a clipboard to knock on the door. It's a big vulnerable hole in Britain's infrastructure that has been exploited for years, whilst pubs and shops close every single day because they can't afford to run."
Hawley has often called for government action on shops suspected of being fronts for money laundering and other criminal activities. He tweeted last month: "If a politician just said 'I'm gonna put a bit of money in and just wipe this all out' it would be one of the most popular things a politicians done in years. Everyone's f***ing fed up with it."
Call for landlord crackdown
Asked what action he would like to see taken, Hawley told the Daily Star: "Crack down on the landlords who are renting out units for these people, investigate their books, ban them from owning commercial property. It would leave huge gaps in our high streets that could be filled by pubs, venues, eating establishments, small businesses. It would genuinely change the country. But its supply and demand isn't it? If the supply increases, if there's more empty units, business rates would have to drop to make sure people could fill those spaces."
More than 2,700 high street businesses were raided last year. Hawley has been such a vocal critic that an online wag mocked him up as the new 'secretary of state for the defence of the high street' when Burnham was elected PM. When the crackdown was announced on Tuesday, he was inundated with messages on X from fans desperate for his reaction.
