It was a scene of heartbreaking devastation as a rapidly spreading fire laid waste to a historic landmark, with flames shooting into the night sky while onlookers watched in stunned silence.
The 19th-century Union Corner building in the centre of Glasgow was known to generations of the city’s residents for its distinctive dome – destroyed in last Sunday’s blaze.
Neighbouring Central Station was spared but it was shut down – and remains out of action for most services, causing chaos for the 80,000 passengers who use Scotland’s busiest transport hub every day.
As council bosses begin the demolition of the ruins, the inferno has brought intense focus to the changing face of our high streets and, in particular, the scourge of vape shops – one of which stands at the centre of this tragedy.
The blaze began in a pop-up vape store and spread with terrifying speed, raising questions over how the growing multi-billion-pound industry is regulated.
An investigation of vape shops by the Mail this week found an inconsistent approach to the safe handling of the products which – thanks to their lithium-ion batteries – have been likened to ‘miniature bombs’.
Some retailers are apparently making up their own rules, with potentially calamitous consequences, while other shops have been linked to organised crime and even grooming gangs.
At a vape shop on one of Scotland’s busiest shopping streets, sales assistant Usama Aslam was adamant that the disposable devices are safe and well-regulated.
The 19th-century Union Corner building in the centre of Glasgow, known to generations of the city’s residents for its distinctive dome, was destroyed in last week’s blaze
But six months ago he was alarmed when smoke emanated from one of the vapes he was handling at the Glasgow outlet. Luckily, it didn’t burst into flames.
He told us that when customers ask him to dispose of their used vapes, staff will take them out to the public bin in the street rather than using one in the shop, which he believes is safer.
The polite and cheerful 24-year-old is typical of vape sellers in Glasgow, where they’re often sold alongside a variety of other products.
Mr Aslam has a fire extinguisher at the National Lottery Shop in Sauchiehall Street – as did all of the vape shops we visited (there are 1,234 in Glasgow and an astonishing 8,500 across Scotland).
But while most shop managers showed us or claimed to have conventional fire extinguishers, specialist ones operated by professionals are recommended for lithium-ion battery fires, and copious water might be needed to prevent reignition, according to the Fire Safety Association.
At the blaze in Glasgow, which erupted in a ground-floor unit, a brave passer-by, Lamin Kongira, grabbed a fire extinguisher to try to tackle the flames only to be forced back by a series of explosions.
Meanwhile, despite the practice at the National Lottery Shop and doubtless elsewhere of throwing vapes out in public bins, disposing of vapes in general waste isn’t recommended by UK Government guidelines – instead they should be uplifted by firms which can safely dispose of them.
Demand for vapes is sky-high – around 5.6 million adults in the UK vaped in 2024, equating to roughly 11 per cent of the adult population, while the vaping industry is worth around £3billion to the economy.
It’s worth £65million in ‘gross added value’ in Scotland, second only to the south-east of England (£72million), according to the UK Vaping Industry Association.
But there are rich pickings for criminals selling cheap and unsafe vaping devices – about half of all vapes in the UK are sold on the black market.
The aftermath of the fire, which began in a pop-up vape store and spread with terrifying speed, raising questions over how the growing multi-billion-pound industry is regulated
They were easy to find on our trawl of vape shops in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Not far from Mr Aslam’s shop, near the Glasgow School of Art – which is being slowly rebuilt after major fires in 2014 and 2018 – another vape seller is furious that the trade has been brought into disrepute.
He said: ‘We sell pre-packaged vapes so you don’t need to charge them up – they come in boxes.
‘But there are plenty who sell really cheap vapes which may need to be charged up before sale in the shop, and they’re not safe.
‘You have people who are willing to sell these dodgy knock-offs, and their businesses aren’t registered – that is the problem.’
According to one witness, the Union Street blaze was started by an adapter full of chargers under the shop’s counter, though the cause has not yet been confirmed and will be investigated by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and Police Scotland.
Disposable vapes were banned last summer – but their largely Chinese producers moved quickly to diversify. They fitted the devices with USB ports to allow recharging which meant technically they were legal – but experts say they are still unsafe due to cheap batteries.
Glasgow Labour MSP Paul Sweeney pointed out that the shop where the Glasgow fire began was a ‘place full of lithium-ion batteries that experts have warned can turn into miniature bombs in seconds’.
He said: ‘The company [which owned the shop] wasn’t registered on the Scottish Government’s official list of retailers allowed to sell tobacco or nicotine products – including vapes.
‘It also appears to have failed to pay its business rates. This raises serious questions.’
Guillermo Rein, a professor of fire science at Imperial College London, said that if ‘batteries were materially involved, this may not have been a conventional shop fire’.
The start of the fire at the vape shop on Union Street, with clouds of thick, black smoke pouring out of the building
Brave passer-by Lamin Kongira grabbed a fire extinguisher to try to tackle the flames at the vape shop only to be forced back by a series of explosions
He added: ‘Lithium-ion battery fires tend to be unusually resistant to suppression because they are designed to be protected from water, but generate intense heat, reignite, and in large numbers can result in fire conditions that are difficult to bring under control.’
Mr Sweeney and Labour MP Maureen Burke are calling for an urgent audit of vape retailers in the city.
In response, Glasgow City Council said there is ‘no confirmed cause for the fire so we cannot comment on speculation that it was caused by a vape/vapes when the root cause may turn out to be something different’.
The shop where the fire began, at 105 Union Street, is in the name of Junaid Retail Ltd, trading as Scot’s World, whose sole director is 29-year-old Ahsan Ali. The property has a rateable value of £18,800, which would mean anyone operating a business there would be liable for business rates of £9,362 per year before any relief.
It emerged this week that the bill for 2025-26 was returned to Glasgow City Council by Royal Mail as an ‘addressee gone away’.
When contacted by the council, landlord Afton Estates advised, however, that Junaid Retail remained the occupier.
Glasgow City Council then forwarded the bill to the company’s registered address at Regent Way, in Hamilton.
It has also emerged that city council officials visited the vape shop at the centre of the Union Street fire at the end of 2024 and carried out a test underage purchase. This was refused.
They also observed stocks of nicotine at the shop, and found them to be legal.
The council said its ‘approach to ensuring compliance with the register is primarily through education and guidance when we receive complaints or intelligence about an individual premises’. The Mail found Afton Estates boss Michael Tasker, 59, at his Edinburgh office. He declined to comment.
First Minister John Swinney, pictured as firefighters continue to battle the blaze following morning, has said he is open to more regulation of vape shops
Architect Alan Dunlop, who was involved in the restoration of Glasgow Central in 2001, is not alone in voicing his shock that a vape shop was allowed to operate in a precious Victorian building with a timber interior, telling us that he found it ‘staggering’.
First Minister John Swinney has said he is open to more regulation of vape shops, while insiders say the current system is ‘light-touch and open to abuse’.
One local authority source said: ‘Registering isn’t exactly onerous – you just need to enter a few basic details, and failure to register only leads to a £200 fine.’
The shop where Mr Aslam works is registered but marked as ‘updates required’ on the Scottish Government’s online register – and when we tried to make further inquiries, the number listed for the store did not connect.
According to the Scottish Government, premises with an ‘updates required’ tag are ‘fully registered and compliant but need to update their details to keep the record accurate’.
In the meantime, business continues to boom for store owners.
At the Yaran shop, also in Sauchiehall Street, vapes were selling for £4.50 each or three for £10.
A sales assistant, when asked if the vapes were compliant with UK law, said she did not know, referring us to owner Farzad Yaran, 42, who said he had never sold ‘dodgy vapes’.
Marco Petrucci, 40, manager of the Forbidden Planet comic and science fiction shop in Sauchiehall Street, said many retailers and people living and working near vape stores would be feeling ‘fear and anxiety’. His own store is next door to a vape shop.
Zafar Shahid runs Mr News/ShopLocal on the edge of the city centre near, selling vapes alongside other merchandise such as soft toys and hookahs. He told us: ‘We are very safe and have a fire extinguisher’
‘There are lots of questions flying around but there needs to be a better understanding of lithium-ion batteries in general – it’s always been a concern,’ he said.
At the neighbouring vape shop – Sauchiehall Street News – Khan Ijaz, 26, and Muhammad Haris, 27, proudly showed off a fire extinguisher and spoke of their shock over the Union Corner fire.
Mr Haris said: ‘We’ve never had any problems and we were very surprised by the fire – it was a tragedy. But our shop is safe and very successful.’
Zafar Shahid, 59, runs Mr News/ShopLocal on the edge of the city centre near the M8 motorway, which is also listed on the Scottish Government’s Register of Tobacco and Nicotine Vapour Product Retailers – set up in 2011 – with ‘updates required’.
Mr Shahid, who has managed the shop for nine years, sells vapes alongside other merchandise such as soft toys and hookahs. He told us: ‘We are very safe and have a fire extinguisher.’
Jamie Strachan, head of retail sales and operations for VPZ, the UK’s largest e-cigarette retailer with 99 shops in Scotland, said the findings of our investigation raised concerns about fire safety – but called for a measured approach from government in response to the Union Corner fire.
He said: ‘The legislation does exist – the problem is lack of enforcement.
An architect who was involved in the restoration of Glasgow Central in 2001, is shocked that a vape shop was allowed to operate in a precious Victorian building with a timber interior
‘It’s not the fault of Trading Standards, who are massively underfunded, and you can’t blame independent convenience stores selling vapes alongside other products, often with no knowledge about them – they’re running a business and there is a loophole which government has created.’
A spokesman for the Independent British Vape Trade Association said it was ‘appalled to learn of the devastating fire in Glasgow’.
‘Whether associated with Sunday’s incident or not, a large “informal” supply chain for vapes currently carries risks for consumers, for the general public, and for the retail trade,’ she said.
‘There is a significant vape trade through opportunist wholesale suppliers, via the many inexperienced “pop up” retailers that currently abound on high streets.
‘This does not allow the traceability and assurance of safety mandated for vapes by UK regulations and standards.’
Vape shops are just as prevalent in Edinburgh, where Jimmy, the 62-year-old manager of Vape Drop in Leith, is also fearful of a ‘knee-jerk reaction’ against retailers.
He said he was sceptical that the Glasgow fire could have been caused by vapes, which in his store are kept in glass cabinets on wooden boards.
He said: ‘We’ll follow the rules, but if it’s been caused by an electrical fire, that could have happened to anyone.’
Jimmy said that while he bought his products from ‘registered suppliers’, he was aware of the emergence of ‘fake’ disposable vapes made by unofficial suppliers and distributed at a discounted price. ‘You’ll find them online fairly easily,’ he said.
‘If you look for anywhere which sells vapes much cheaper, then you can guarantee it’s not real.’
Vape Drop was not registered – but Jimmy, who said he was unaware of the need to do so, said he would register his shop after our visit.
Abdul Jabbar, 61, moved to Scotland from Pakistan in his 20s and owns nearby hardware shop Anything & Everything.
It stores its vapes in glass cabinets – with Mr Jabbar saying ‘we just do it to look nice, not for fire safety’.
He said he believed there was ‘no regulation’ for vape shops, and claimed that he had not been advised to comply with any rules.
‘We have to comply with regulation for fireworks – but not with vapes,’ he added.
Meanwhile, Mohammed Ashraf, at a shop branded Leomax/Lost Mary in Leith, showed us the cheapest vapes he has – £5 for 600 puffs, and another one priced at £16.99 for 25,000 puffs.
Aside from concerns over the quality of vapes on sale across the UK, there are also fears that some vape shops are being run by organised crime networks.
One council source in Glasgow said vape shops had been linked to criminality, saying: ‘It’s a bit like picking at a scab – enforcement action will be taken for one issue, then you’ll go in and find another; it can be off the scale. You tend to find a variety of bad behaviour.’
This week, Channel 4 screened a documentary which found rogue vape shops south of the Border were now connected to alleged child sexual abuse and exploitation, amid claims that children are being given vapes in exchange for sexual favours.
Last October, Police Scotland raided more than 150 high street businesses as part of a major operation against organised crime, targeting vape shops and other stores suspected of being fronts for crime gangs.
Detectives believed the shops were being used for money-laundering, selling illicit tobacco products, and committing immigration and tax offences.
For now, a poorly regulated industry continues to operate with minimal enforcement of the rules, raising a chilling question – how many more of the thousands of vape shops on our high streets are firetraps, or hotbeds of crime?
