LETTERS – How did they get licences?

As the Trading Standards office said in your article that the closed shops on Winsover Road were run by out of the country crime syndicates, why or how did they manage to get trading licences?
The added insult to the public at large is the fact that they all seem to sell the same produce which cannot make much of a profit if any at all come to that.
I was interested to see what they sold so a couple of years ago I visited a couple of the foreign-owned shops hoping to find some new products and flavours.
The reaction I got in each one would never encourage me to go back, I was totally ignored or could not speak English. Being in a English-speaking country I would have thought that was a prerequisite to encourage more custom therefore more profits obviously not.
What I cannot understand is why so many are allowed to open right next to each other it really does not make any commercial sense what so ever?
Mrs F Stowers
Spalding