TWO Fremantle shops and another in Hamilton Hill were temporarily shut this week under a state government crackdown on illegal tobacco and vape sales.
While lauding the closures, Fremantle mayor Ben Lawver believes federal tobacco excise taxes should be reviewed after kickback on a social media post suggesting they were helping fuel the black market.
Authorities are warning organised crime groups are deeply involved in the trade and linked to arson attacks on tobacconists around the country.
Police have not yet announced charges over the Fremantle and Hamilton Hill closures, with investigations continuing.
Mr Lawver said it wasn’t just tobacco that drew concerns about excise levels.
Fremantle MLA Simone McGurk pushed hard for legislation to help authorities crack down on black market tobacco. Photo by Steve Grant
“I think the tax federally probably should be reviewed, because it’s baked into the budget – every six months on alcohol and and tobacco,” he said.
“Hopefully the federal government takes a look at that, because we’re seeing alcohol now being sold illegally over east, like home brew stuff with high methanol content that can poison people, or have plastic debris in it.”
The mayor said only two of Fremantle’s estimated 18 vape or tobacco-related stores had so far been closed and so far there wasn’t any evidence available on whether similar closures over east had curbed their proliferation or made operators adhere to the law.
“This is all brand new,” he said.
The council is hoping to push through a scheme amendment which would force future operators to need council approval to open.
“We still need to get permission to advertise our scheme amendment, and then adopt it, and then have the minister reapprove that, so we’re just waiting on the state government to send that back to us right now.”
“We’re kind of in the limbo zone for what we can do as a city, but, it’s brand new, so we’ll find out.”
Mr Lawver said a property owner with a closed High Street shopfront had already approached him to find out whether that was grounds for breaking the lease, as they’d inherited the vape shop when they recently purchased the building.
“He’s now asking those kinds of questions, so I think that’s a pretty good outcome if landlords are now starting to look a little bit harder at what they can do.”
Fremantle Labor MLA Simone McGurk had pushed hard for the tougher legislation and said she expected more closures were likely.
“I think anyone looking at the proliferation of so-called convenience stores, selling, what we highly suspect is vapes and illegal tobacco, would lead you to think that this is just the beginning of what we’re saying with shutdowns,” she said.
Ms McGurk said authorities were trying to distinguish between legitimate small businesses and organised illegal operations.
“We don’t want to, target perfectly legal functioning, small business,” she said.
“But if they are selling vapes, if they are selling illegal tobacco or anything more nefarious than that, then I’m all for targeting them and targeting them hard.”
She said the seizures connected to the local operations were substantial.
“Over the course of the operations, there were nearly 39,000 cigarettes, 350 grams of loose tobacco, and 165 vapes.”
The state government last week announced six stores across WA had already received closure orders since the new laws came into effect on May 13, with more than 140,000 illegal cigarettes seized statewide.
The laws allow authorities to close premises for up to 90 days and impose penalties of up to $4.2 million for individuals and $21 million for companies involved in large-scale illicit tobacco activity.
Ms McGurk said she believed the scale of some storefront operations raised questions.
“You can’t help but wonder whether there’s organised crime or other illegal activity that are happening out of some of these premises, the business model just cannot stack up in the sort of products that they’re selling in some of these premises.
“We’re looking at a second tranche of legislation to be able to shut down for a longer period of time and also to put some responsibility onto the owner of the premises to ensure that that there’s legal operations happening; that there’s no illegal activity happening out of their premises,” she said.
The minister also acknowledged debate around whether Australia’s high tobacco excise was unintentionally driving demand for illegal products.
“I’m interested that there’s now a national discussion about what the level of taxation is on legal cigarettes, and whether that’s impacted on the significant increase in the number of these shops,” she said.
“But the expert advice still seems to land in favour of taxing tobacco and vape products,” she said.
by STEVE GRANT