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A 20-year-old entrepreneur has opened a vape shop in a town centre.
Emil Badi says his new store, All Flavours, in Sittingbourne High Street will not be “solely driven by profits” and instead wants it to “help the community”.
He has signed the shop up for Project Green which provides bins where vapers can recycle their disposables.
Mr Badi says this will help to keep town centre streets clean.
This comes after KentOnline reported that Kent County Council had called for a ban on shops selling disposable vapes due to environmental and health concerns.
The KCC motion, which called on the government to ban disposable vapes, was voted for by a majority of members.
Despite concerns surrounding vaping, this will be the third vape shop in High Street, Sittingbourne, as the vape industry continues to grow, with 300 million e-cigarettes sold in the UK in the last year.
Sittingbourne resident Mr Badi says his business is trying to move away from disposables and instead use refillable vapes to cut down on rubbish.
He said: “We want our customers to move onto the liquid vapes rather than the disposables and only sell them because everywhere else is selling them at the moment.
“We always recommend our customers to buy the liquid vapes as they’re cheaper and create less rubbish which litters our streets but we also have to sell what people want.”
The All Flavours owner says he thinks the business will pick up despite a slow start after it opened on Saturday, July 22.
The shop is in what was for many years the front office of the East Kent Gazette.
Mr Badi said he’s “really happy to have the store open” after two months of “long nights and days”.
He said: “I had the idea of opening the vape shop around two months ago as vapes are really popular at the moment. Everywhere you look around there are people with vapes.
“Since then we have been able to get everything up and running and stock a wide variety of vapes of all different flavours which do include the disposals.
“That’s why we are offering a loyalty scheme which offers a free vape in return for 30 used vapes.”
The High Street has seen a number of changes in recent weeks.
Iceland permanently shut its doors on July 15.
However, Snack Shack opened on July 8 next to Kaspa's dessert shop, just a few doors from the newly-opened vape shop.
All Flavours has a strict Challenge 25 policy which requires customers to show their IDs to purchase any products.
The vape shop will offer a delivery service in the coming months where people can order the vapes to their doorstep via the All Flavours website which is due to be launched soon.