Tuesday March 10th 2026
Disposable vapes have been banned since June 2025
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Stuart Sommerville
Sunday’s disastrous fire in Glasgow city centre prompted questions on Monday morning about the dangers of vapes in West Lothian businesses.
Almost every community has a shop dedicated to selling vapes – small electronic smoking devices – as the trade has taken off in the last decade.
Speaking at this month’s meeting of Bathgate Local Area Committee Councillor Willie Boyle asked police and fire officers for their views.
“I’m not expecting a definitive answer today but I think it’s something we should all be looking at,” he told the meeting.
Gerry Hughes, the local liaison officer for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, said battery fires were something everyone had to “get better” at recognising the risks.
Investigators confirmed late on Monday afternoon that the blaze which razed the B-listed Victorian building on the eastern corner of Union Street and Renfield Street in Glasgow city centre had its source in premises used as a vape shop next to the Union Street stairway up into Central Station.
The station has been closed to passengers and disruption is likely for the rest of the week.
Councillor Boyle said at the Monday morning meeting: “These vapes are small electronic units, it seems to be a battery problem.
“We have had battery problems raised with electric vehicles, electric bicycles. This was a vape shop and there are potential risks to that. It was just to highlight because if it is an issue, how do we get on top of it. What crossed my mind is the storage of these things.”
West Lothian Council’s Trading Standards team has responsibilities around the sale of vapes – the overarching principle being to ensure that the products available to the consumer must be safe.
There are rules which govern the correct size of nicotine tank which is regulated by the MHRA, and checks that the vapes sold carry correct safety markings.
Businesses which sell vapes have to be on a national register and can be fined if they are not.
Trading Standards has no rules around vape storage.
Sergeant Jamie Duthie Bathgate’s community policing sergeant told the meeting: “I think high level meetings are being carried out because of what happened in Glasgow.
“I would imagine Trading Standards would be a massive part of any meetings that take place and certainly we’d support anything locally with regards to anything that Trading Standards would want to take forward either as a single issue, or with partners.”
Gerry Hughes said the Fire Service had dealt with major incidents at waste transfer stations where discarded lithium batteries had been crushed and ignited. He stressed that the difficulty lay in extinguishing a blaze started by a battery fire – which will even burn under water.
There have also been issues- highlighted by the LDRS – of the risks of fires in communal stairwells from battery fires on e-bikes and e-scooters.
Mr Hughes told the meeting: “We can try to educate people to dispose of these batteries safely. We have to get ahead of these things and get better. There are new risks to communities and we need to tackle them head on.”
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