WELCOME to Britain’s so-called “vape capital” – where 54 tacky e-cigarette shops plague two streets of an inner-city area.
Across the UK, vape stores have spread rapidly since the early 2010s, swamping once pleasant high streets with trashy neon lights that attract thuggish teens.
But nowhere appears to have been hit quite so heavily as Manchester‘s Cheetham Hill.
The area has been overrun with 54 vape shops lining just two roads in the city suburb.
On Harris Street alone, at least 30 skirt the pavement.
And the neighbouring Overbridge Road has another 24 more sitting side by side.
Over the past decade, the district is believed to have morphed into an “e-cigarette smokers’ paradise”.
Lib Dem councillor John Leech, the leader of the opposition on Manchester City Council, said the Labour government has failed to “protect shops on the high street”.
He told the Mail: “They’ve chosen to relax planning rules so authorities do not have the strength to reject the proliferation of vape shops.
“A shop that might have been a green grocer in the past might have been replaced by a similar one. But now it can be replaced by anything.”
The shift to vape shops in Cheetham Hill followed its notorious counterfeit clothing trade scene being stamped out by police.
Cheetham Hill, and nearby Strangeways, were previously known as the “counterfeit capital of Europe”.
The label stuck after dozens of shops selling fake designer goods opened in the area.
In 2022, Greater Manchester Police launched “Operation Vulcan” targeting organised crime in the neighbourhoods.
By 2024, officers said they had seized almost 1050 tonnes of counterfeit items.
They also shut down 216 counterfeit shops, made 238 arrests, seized over £500,000 cash, 2.4 million class C drugs, and almost 400,000 illicit vapes.
Shop owners say vape stores began filling the gaps left behind.
Kamran Akhtar, 48, manager at The Vape Boyz on Harris Street, insisted there was nothing dodgy going on.
He said: “People think there is illicit stuff going on around because of Cheetham Hill’s past here, but there really isn’t.
“There are only vape shops selling vapes legally to corner shops, and retailers across the country, that’s it.
“The main reason why there are so many is that since Operation Vulcan, I’d say around 30% of counterfeit goods shops closed and vape shops popped up in their place.
“Then more and more came along replacing the counterfeit trade. We have been here since 2013 and there have never been so many.
“Most of the shops here are wholesale selling all across the country, it’s rare for anyone to sell single devices.
“Retailers from Scotland, Wales, London, Bristol, Yorkshire, all come to this area to buy vapes.
“I understand the negative reaction as it’s the type of person that vapes shop bring to the area, but if anything, it has become safer with all the counterfeit shop owners having moved on.”
Manchester’s trading standards team said they were aware of the surge in vape shops in the area.
The neighbourhood has also seen a number of Salford trading standards raids over the past five years.
Thousands of vapes worth more than £70,000 were seized.
Along with counterfeit e-liquids taken from shops on the streets.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Chief Inspector Andy Torkington told the Mail: “You’d drive round there and think ‘Why do you need another vape shop?’
“But the reality is that a box of legitimate vapes similar to what you’d fit 24 packs of crisps in has a £1,500 mark up on it, from the wholesale price to what you would end up selling to the retailer.
“You only have to look at the cars of some of the people to work out the finances that are involved.”
