Steve Tasker was one of the first, maybe even the very first, to sell e-cigs in Sweden. In 2009 he set up his shop in Stockholm and is filled to the brim with anecdotes from the world of 1TP8. From all the "idiots" who half blew themselves up to mean old ladies who baked buns for him.
"I was on SVT, the news, TV4, Vetenskapsradion. And it was all about vapes" says Steve Tasker when Vejpkollen meets him.
Vaping pioneer Steve Tasker is jumping right into the culmination and, in a way, the start of his e-cigarette journey. The Englishman was one of the first, if not the very first, to import and sell e-cigarettes in Sweden. He was probably the only one to have a physical shop for a few years, he says, and has a decade and a half of anecdotes and stories to share. It's just a matter of getting them under control and pointing him in the right direction.
E-cigarettes almost became illegal
"When it started, there was a lot of fuss about nicotine. I was fined half a million euros if I continued to sell - and another shop in Malmö was caught," he continues. Steve Tasker. "The guy downstairs refused to pay the fine. He said 'there's no law', so he took them to court. It took three or four years before it was finalised. It was higher court all the way."
Saving an emerging industry
The events took place in 2013-2016. Swedish Medical Products Agency wanted to see a regulation where e-liquid fell under pharmaceutical legislation, thus stopping all imports of e-liquid into Sweden. The company The trade team Vintrie AB, which at the time had 11 vejp stores across the Nordic region, took action and appealed the decision. Although the company went bankrupt during the period, the case was taken all the way up to the Supreme Administrative Court. The court finally ruled that e-cigarettes and e-liquid with nicotine were to be considered a pleasure product (just like cigarettes) and not a medicine. This opened the door for several companies to invest in e-cigarettes and vejpning in Sweden.
"It was actually his company that saved the whole industry," says Steve.
Mysterious parcels from China
Steve mixes freely between Swedish and English, laughs often and gives a cordial impression behind the slightly hard surface.
Steve Tasker himself stumbled across e-cigarettes in 2009 by sheer chance.
"I found out through my best friend in England. She smoked like a bloody chimney! But I rang her on Christmas Eve to wish her a Merry Christmas, and she said 'Do you know what I got for Christmas? A little electric cigarette - and it works!" So I asked where she got it, and it was some company in England. So I found the website and ordered. But they were quite expensive at the time"
Steve continued to look around online and found other sites that were selling.
"I found some e-cigarettes from China that cost £10, so I ordered five packs to take home."
At the time, the only ciggalikes available were of mediocre quality at best. According to Steve, they tasted "awful" but still somehow did the job.
A jack of all trades
It's not hard to see that Steve Tasker is a doer of sorts. His life story moves from growing up in Leamington Spa just outside Coventry in England, to starting a bar, a hamburger factory and other random businesses in Spain, ending up in Sweden via a Swedish girl, winning the Swedish championship in sausage making and much more. Yet it feels like everything he has time to tell is just a scratch on the surface of everything he has really done.
The next part of the story is just as random, but would lead him into the next chapter of his life, which has lasted 15 years now.
Became a re-seller on pure reflex
"I brought two e-cigarettes to a party and of course people asked: "what is that? Do you smoke indoors?" No, this is an e-cigarette, it's just water vapour. "Where do you buy them?" "No, but I sell them," says Steve, signalling with his body language that it was a spur-of-the-moment invention.
No sooner said than done - people wanted to buy, so Steve ordered more.
"I ordered ten more packets, sold them, ordered twenty more and ... tada," says Steve, flapping his arms.
Cheap website
The small business expanded further via a friend who sold on at a golf course, of all places, and the orders from China turned into 50 parcels. So it was time to start a business for real.
"I built a cheap website, and then I bought some stuff on credit cards for about £25,000, £30,000, and got ready for the big day," says Steve, leaving the rest up in the air for a while.
"It absolutely happened nothing in four months. But then I started getting some orders from Malmö and Gothenburg. Never from Stockholm."
The e-cigarette shop Stop now!
Steve was earning about £20 a day from the business at the time, and had e-cigs all over the house.
"So I needed to find somewhere else to keep everything, my wife was mad at me. But I found part of a premises in Vällingby that had retail space. Then I thought: I have retail space, I can open a shop at weekends."
It was the same story all over again. No-one came to the shop at all for five or six weeks before things slowly started to pick up.
"Then there was one, then two, then a lot. I was the only vejp store in Stockholm and probably Sweden for maybe one and a half to two years."
That shop is still there, although it has since changed premises. It is simply called "Slutanu.com".
"It's really called that, it's absolutely wonderful," breaks in Christian El-Hage with a laugh. He is the manager of Steve's other shop "Ecigg City" where we are.
The physical store is also called slutanu.com?
- Yes, yes. I was so tired of all the companies in Sweden having English names, even though they're not even English-run. "No, I'll take a Swedish name".
"Every time I talk to a company and they ask me what my email address is, it gets confusing," Christian El-Hage breaks in again. "I just say: stop it, and they ask me: stop it, what have I done?"
But Steve brushes aside his store manager's amusement at the perhaps odd name.
"Oh, that's great, and everyone will remember it."
Award-winning sausage stuffer became vejparen on TV
At this time, Steve was actually involved in the aforementioned sausage making, with the shop in Vällingby open at weekends and the online business running in parallel. And it was at this time that he became top news, appearing in newspapers and TV reports as well as debating in all kinds of media. The laws and regulations in place at the time were very unclear. Sales were banned in Sweden, it was claimed, while new directives made it free throughout the EU.
"I was out doing something and a helper I had in the shop called me and said I needed to come back, and change. Then there were two from DN there (Dagens Nyheter) and they asked about products and everything and I ended up on the front page and a double spread in the paper. Then TV4 called and asked if I could get into a debate with Martin Burman from the Swedish Medical Products Agency, then SVT called about some other debate and everything went on."
Beautifully singing Svengelska
The publicity generated a lot of new customers for Steve and PR for a hefty value.
"There was a rapid increase in activity," he states in his beautifully sing-songy Svengelska.
Steve's way of speaking is of course coloured by the dialect, but he is also brutally honest in his choice of words. The combination means that things are said with a twinkle in his eye and perhaps not quite as harshly as they might appear in text. Like when he talks about his debate opponent on SVT.
"I can't remember her name now, but she's a well-known anti-smoking person and a real witch."
He adds some more colourful English expressions too, but we can leave both them and the name of the person aside.
Although the media attention provided PR, the business was thwarted by customs seizures and other legal issues. This is where the story ties in with where we started, when The Trade Team in Vintrie in Skåne took the fight through the various legal bodies.
Opened vejpshopp with relative
The next step in the chronology of Steve's vejp progress came via his then-wife's daughter's cousin...
- He came to visit for a coffee break and wondered if we should open a shop in town too. I thought, "Why not?" It's cheaper and easier if you have a partner.
The relative was Jimmy Micksäter and the store became Ecigg City, located on Sveavägen in Stockholm since 2016. It is down a rickety staircase to the staff area and warehouse in that store that this interview takes place.
"Only idiots smoked e-cigs then"
Of course, a pioneer like Steve Tasker has seen both the products, the vejp community and the customer base evolve over the years.
- Four or five years ago, only idiots smoked e-cigs. No ordinary person did it. Back then, it was all about building your own, mixing your own e-juice and so on. It has become much more mainstream now.
Older customers now
Again we have to flag Steve's crass, rather dry sense of humour. It's nowhere near as harsh as it looks, and next to him sits the store manager Christian, who vejpat for many years, builds his own stuff and doesn't feel the least bit labelled an "idiot".
"But it's become quite a lot of older customers, who find their brand and don't switch or are so interested in experimenting. I'd say 80 per cent of customers in Vällingby are over 50," Steve continues.
"No bullshit" said the aunt
He happily continues to pull story after story from his sleeve.
"One of my favourite stories, if you don't count all the idiots who changed batteries and nearly blew something up, is an elderly lady. She was over 80 and came into my shop. She wasn't shy at all, she was mean. "I don't want any bullshit. Don't try to sell me anything else, I just want to sit and smoke!" says Mr Steve and pretends to vote in a shrill voice.
"But she bought herself an e-cig, came back and bought a refill, bought a new tank, refill again. She got nicer and nicer every week she came. Eventually it was baked buns!"
"So one day she came in when the shop was full of people. "Fuck off. I've been to the doctor and now we're going to have a serious talk,' she said angrily and the shop fell dead silent. I had time to think that this was the end of the company. But she continued: "I've had an annual check-up and the doctor wondered what I'd been up to, because my numbers have never been that good. I've been doing e-cigs, I said. Well keep doing it then, the doctor said".
"Never anything illegal"
It's been 16 years since that party when Steve decided to become an e-cigarette retailer and 15 since he started slutanu.com and became the face of vejpen in the Swedish media. Otherwise, he has zero interest in online groups or social media communities. They are full of "freaks" according to Steve. But unless something unexpected happens, he will continue in the industry for quite a while and collect even more anecdotes, even if, as I said, we have only scratched the surface of all he already has. Or as he says in closing.
"It's not even half of what I've done. I've done everything, but never anything illegal. At least no drugs."
