Press Releases

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has welcomed the announcement of a series of measures aimed at supporting retailers and their colleagues in the battle against violent crime and repeat offending. 

The measures announced today by the Prime Minister include: 

• Assaulting a retail worker to be made a standalone criminal offence

The Scottish Government have published a new six week consultation on the implementation of the disposable vapes ban, expanding on the definition of a disposable vape and outlining the fines that will be issued to businesses who continue to sell and supply disposables after a ban.

The ban, which is scheduled to come into force in April 2025, is subject to separate regulations in Scotland which closely resemble those in England. Scotland are the first UK nation to provide more detail on their definition of a disposable vape, which is as follows:

There’s only one month to go until Conference24, our biggest event of the year. Taking place on Tuesday April 30th at the Vox in Birmingham, this is a must-attend for anyone in the convenience sector looking to grow their business, build valuable relationships, and gain exclusive insights into changing consumer habits and how to respond to these going forward. This will be our biggest Conference yet, and we’ve got an exciting line-up of sponsors this year which includes Mondelez Snack Display, Coca-Cola Enterprise Partners, and One Stop.

ACS (The Association of Convenience Stores) has called on the Government to focus on effective enforcement to deal with the huge illicit trade in vapes that will receive a £645m boost if disposable vapes are banned next year.

In response to the Government’s short consultation on the proposals to ban disposable vape devices from April 2025, ACS has highlighted a number of fundamental issues with DEFRA’s own impact assessment on the ban, warning that it has significantly underestimated the losses that will be felt by retailers.

The Government has published the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, confirming the introduction of a ban on the sale of tobacco products to anyone born on or after 1st January 2009.

The Bill contains enabling powers for the Secretary of State to introduce a wide range of restrictions on the vaping category, including limitations on a number of areas including: 

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has praised the work that local shops in Wales do in their communities as part of the launch of the 2024 Welsh Local Shop Report.

At the launch of the report today (Thursday 14th March) in the Senedd (the Welsh Parliament), ACS engaged with members of the Senedd on the role that convenience stores play in communities across Wales and emphasised the importance of local shops not just as community hubs, but also as local investors and job creators.

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has welcomed the publication of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute manifesto, which calls on the Government to commit significant additional resources to support the work of Trading Standards in communities across the UK.

The manifesto sets out three priority areas for the next Government:

ACS (The Association of Convenience Stores) has welcomed a new report published by the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, highlighting the ways that PCCs across England and Wales are engaging with businesses to tackle retail crime.

The report, published today, follows the publication of the Retail Crime Action Plan in 2023 which establishes how police officers should respond to shop theft and violent incidents in stores. All police forces have signed up to the Action Plan.

ACS (the Association of Convenience Stores) has welcomed measures announced in today’s Budg

The UK’s local shops recorded a shocking 5.6million incidents of shop theft over the last year, smashing the previous record of 1.1m incidents recorded in the 2023 Crime Report.

The Association of Convenience Stores’ 2024 Crime Report, released today, outlines the scale of the retail crime crisis blighting communities across the UK. The report reveals that retailers have recorded over 600 incidents of theft an hour over the last year.