{"id":232323,"date":"2025-10-22T11:23:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T11:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/232323\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T11:23:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T11:23:12","slug":"fire-at-tip-top-bakery-perth-suburbs-join-million-dollar-house-price-club-palmyra-man-accused-of-impersonating-police-in-fake-warrant-robbery-new-gaming-machine-rules-at-crown-per","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/232323\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire at Tip Top Bakery; Perth suburbs join million-dollar house price club; Palmyra man accused of impersonating police in \u2018fake warrant\u2019 robbery; New gaming machine rules at Crown Perth; WA to turbocharge apartment building; Ramapnt illegal tobacco sales in Perth; 11-year-old charged with armed robbery in Armadale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Half of Perth\u2019s corner shops are selling illegal tobacco, according to the Australian Council of Smoking and Health, which is calling on the WA government to urgently reform its penalties. <\/p>\n

The ACOSH surveyed 103 retail outlets across 56 suburbs and found the illegal sale of tobacco or vapes was rampant at newsagents, delis, tobacconists, convenience stores and gift shops.<\/p>\n

\"Shops<\/p>\n

Shops selling nicotine vapes illegally could face bigger fines under a state government crackdown.Credit: Brook Mitchell<\/p>\n

\u201cIllegal tobacco and vapes are being sold in broad daylight \u2014 proudly displayed in glass cabinets and listed on laminated menus,\u201d chief executive Laura Hunter said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no pretense, no fear of being caught, and very few enforceable penalties when they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

WA is the only state in Australia that has not updated its legislation in response to the rise in the illegal tobacco and vape trade, with the ACOSH calling the state\u2019s laws \u201ctoothless\u201d.<\/p>\n

Currently, a person can be fined up to $10,000 for breaching the tobacco laws, or a business up to $40,000 for a first-time offence.<\/p>\n

Following a series of violent attacks on smoke shops and fears of \u2018tobacco wars\u2019 in the west, WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch last month said the penalties were too low to deter shop owners.<\/p>\n

He said he wanted the power to issue interim closure orders.<\/p>\n

Yesterday during question time, Police Minister Reece Whitby defended the state government\u2019s pace to reform its laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom January this year, the WA Department of Health has conducted more than 1,600 inspections in Western Australia. It has seized more than 190,000 vapes, 460,000 cigarettes and over 85 kilograms of loose tobacco,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWestern Australia wants to have the toughest and the best laws in the country in relation to this issue, so we are currently involved in putting those laws together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking at what the other states have put up because we want to have the toughest, most effective and best anti\u2013illegal tobacco laws in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

It comes a day after the Department of Health\u2019s annual report showed smoking in WA had bucked the trend and increased over the past two years from 10 per cent of people to 12 per cent. <\/p>\n

In 2018, just nine per cent of the population smoked, with the Cancer Council of WA at the time predicting that figure would drop to five per cent by 2028. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Half of Perth\u2019s corner shops are selling illegal tobacco, according to the Australian Council of Smoking and Health,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-232323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}