TRADING standards chiefs have pledged to continue cracking down on the sale of restricted fireworks to young people.

Liz Levett, who heads York's trading standards team, said fireworks were a major contributor to antisocial behaviour.

She said undercover officers would stage further operations to check shops are following the law later this year.

She was speaking after an Acomb shopkeeper admitted selling fireworks to a 15-year-old boy days before Guy Fawkes' night last year.

Stephen Kenneth Ward, 45, who runs Ward News in Front Street, Acomb, was one of two people caught in a sting operation last year.

He has vowed never to sell fireworks again after being given a conditional discharge and being ordered to pay £250 costs.

York magistrates heard that the shopkeeper had been in the retail business for 25 years without incident, but had lost his good reputation after just one illegal sale.

In interview he said he had never before had an incident of under-age sales and confirmed he had received guidance on the sale of fireworks.

He said he did not remember seeing the boy when he visited at 2pm on October 27 while a trading standards officer looked on.

Stuart Sutton, mitigating, said Ward had sold around three-and-a-half million products with age restrictions on them, such as cigarettes and lottery tickets, in his career.

"He made one mistake and his reputation is gone," he said.

The court heard that training procedures had been tightened up and a refusal book, which records when staff decline to sell restricted items like cigarettes and booze, had been introduced.

Speaking after the case Ms Levett said trading standards officers checked 11 premises in the city and two sold fireworks to underage people.

She said: "Firework safety is important.

"They are explosives and they can cause injury in the wrong hands, which is why they are age-restricted."

Ward, of Church Close, Wheldrake, pleaded guilty to supplying fireworks to a person under the age of 18.

The Evening Press accompanied trading standards on some of their shop checks in York and Acomb.

Shop owners who sell fireworks to under-18s face fines of up to £5,000 or even six months in prison. It is also illegal for under-18s to carry fireworks in a public place.

Updated: 09:36 Saturday, May 21, 2005