Dairy owner charged with vape selling to children flees to China
A Christchurch dairy owner charged with selling vapes to children bought a one-way ticket to China and is unlikely to return to New Zealand, a court has heard.
Xiaoming He was due to appear in the Christchurch District Court yesterday.
He was facing possible fines of almost half a million dollars if convicted on all 12 charges, which also include accusations that he peddled unpackaged cigarettes.
Klaudia Courteney, for the Ministry of Health, said Immigration New Zealand had confirmed He bought a one-way ticket to China for March 20. He was unlikely to return, she said.
On that basis, He’s defence lawyer, Todd Nicholls, asked Judge Stephen O’Driscoll for leave to withdraw as counsel, which O'Driscoll granted.
A formal proof hearing will be held on May 29.
If the charges are proved against He, the former dairy owner could be fined, with the amount being determined by his sentencing judge.
But because the charges are category 1 and can only have fines imposed as the penalty, a warrant cannot be issued for his arrest and he may not ever return to New Zealand to pay that fine.
The 62-year-old first appeared in Christchurch District Court on January 30.
He owned JDs Dairy in Addington, which The Press revealed was a hotspot for teenagers wanting to buy vaping products. He later operated a dairy on Opawa Rd called J Mart, which is now closed.
The Addington dairy was one of seven fined for selling vaping products to minors in Christchurch in 2022.
He was labelled as “dishonest” in a High Court decision and ordered to sell his property to recover money owed.
Christchurch mother Anna Stewart who found out her now 15-year-old son was buying vapes from He’s shop was in the public gallery and was “shocked” and “gutted” He had fled the country.
She had a vape her son had brought off He and had planned to hand it back to him. “We didn’t have enormous expectations, we knew it was likely to be a monetary fine but we hoped it would send a message to other retailers.
“It really just demonstrates how ineffective our system is.”
In January, He told The Press he hoped to sell vaping products again when his new retailer premises application for Opawa Rd was approved.
The application was denied because of the store’s proximity to Opawa School.
Since last year, new vape stores have not been allowed to open within 300m of the boundary of a school or marae. Disposable vapes and flavours considered to target a young audience have also been banned.
He was the first specialist vape retailer - an approved business where vaping products make up the majority of sales – to be charged for an offence against the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act 1990, as well as the first person to be charged for selling flavoured vape products from an unapproved premises.
The Press understood four of the charges against him relate to offences allegedly committed from his new Opawa Rd dairy late last year.
Three charges were for selling vapes to people aged under 18 and five were for selling vapes in flavours he was not allowed to sell.
According to court documents, it was alleged He sold “golden tobacco”, “blue raspberry” and “fresh mint” flavoured vapes to teenagers aged between 13 and 15 from an unapproved premises.
The remaining four charges were for selling single cigarettes or selling cigarette packets that did not display standard health warnings.
The offences were said to have occurred between January and November last year.
Nine of the charges carried a maximum fine of $50,000 each, while the remaining three had maximum fines of $5000 – a total of $465,000.