The vapes and sweeties shop

Outrage over retailers' new sales pitch to impressionable children on the school route

- DAN VEVERS

EXCLUSIVE STORE'S TEDDY REBRAND BLASTED

PARENTS have reacted with horror to the opening of a "vapes and candy" shop just around the corner from a high school.

The store, painted pink, was slammed as a "disgrace" and an "embarrassment" by locals in Denny, Stirlingshire.

Formerly just a vape shop, the storefront sign now reads "Hayz Vape/Hayz Candy" with a teddy bear logo in the middle.

It is located at a busy crossroads en route to the local high school - about a 10-minute walk up the road for school kids.

One parent told the Record: "It is also next door to the 'candied' ice cream shop.

"I find it a disgrace our local council would allow vape shops to open so close to a school, and to advertise and sell sweets in the same premises is disgusting.

"How can we prevent young people taking up smoking vapes if we are encouraging them into these brightly-coloured sweet shops on the way to school?

"The town is already littered with rubbish and vapes are discarded all around the streets and pathways to and from the high school... it is such an embarrassment to the town."