Two St Helen’s Road shops caught selling fake tobacco and illegal vapes have been shut for a second time, and Swansea Council says it will close them again if they reopen and reoffend.
Magistrates ordered the shop trading as Swansea Market and Kubas Superstore closed for three months after Trading Standards test purchases found them still selling counterfeit tobacco and illegal vapes, the council said.
Swansea Market, at 17 St Helen’s Road, was the shop front of a £184,000 illegal tobacco operation run from a flat upstairs, which sent Rekawt Abdul and Mohamed Saifadin Mohamed to prison for three years and two years in September.
Kubas Superstore, a few doors along, was among nine shops shut in the October 2025 raids, when officers with sniffer dogs went through 14 premises across the city in three days.
Cllr Andrew Williams, the cabinet member for development, said the closures were “part of our ongoing campaign against illegal vape sales in the city”.
He said: “We’ve closed a total of 14 vape shops since June this year, following investigations by our Trading Standards. Some we have closed more than once.”
Three months, then the shutters go up again
That repeat is the problem, because a three-month closure order is the most magistrates can hand down. Cllr Williams said: “Current legislation means that we can only close these shops for a period of three months at a time.”
He said the council would keep going back. “I want to reassure the public that we will continue revisiting these premises when they reopen and take action to close them down again if they are caught selling illegal vapes.”
The aim, he said, was “to disrupt this illegal trade that is impacting our high streets”.
St Helen’s Road has had the heaviest share of the year’s closures. Bob Marley Vapes, Asia Vapes and Kubus were shut there last October; Asia Vape and Vape City went again last month; now Swansea Market and Kubas.
Across the city the run since June has taken in Pontarddulais, High Street, Mansel Street, Morriston and Dilwyn Street. Cllr Williams’s 14 counts shops closed more than once; by our tally of the council’s announcements, 12 different shops have been shut.
Swansea Council seized £470,000 of illegal vapes in the year after the disposable ban, more than any other council in the UK, according to Freedom of Information figures published in August.
The power the council still does not have
The revolving door is why councillors voted in September to ask the Welsh Government for planning powers to block new vape shops, as England’s councils now have. At present a vape shop can open on any Swansea street without planning permission.
Moving that motion, Cllr Andrea Harrington described watching Trading Standards close a business in her ward only for it to reopen across the road the next day under a new name. A Welsh Government spokesperson said at the time it would consider similar measures when it next reviews planning use classes.
The sign above Swansea Market still promises “open 7 day a week, 8:00 to 22:00”. For the next three months, the court notices on the shutter say otherwise.
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