A Spalding off licence caught selling smuggled alcohol has had its premises licence revoked.
The action was taken by South Holland District Council’s licensing committee after Lincolnshire Police requested a review of the premises licence for Global Foods, based in Winsover Road.
At a hearing last week, the committee was told that police officers visited the store on June 19 and found there was no premises licence on display or available.
There was also no CCTV, which is a licence requirement, and no logbook to record times when sales of alcohol have been refused due to a customer’s age.
Officers agreed an action plan for these issues to be corrected but when they returned on July 22 there was still no logbook available.
A CCTV system had been installed but staff were unable to operate it.
Behind the counter 29 bottles of alcohol were found on sale. They had no excise duty stamps and had been smuggled into the UK, under-cutting businesses which pay the full fee for goods.
Delon Kuriakose, the store’s licence holder, said he had been trying to sell the business at the time of the offences.
Marius Legavicius, who has been running the store since April, originally told police that the illegal alcohol was already in the shop when he took over.
But speaking at the hearing, he admitted that he bought the drinks from a man “who turned up at the shop” and did not receive an invoice.
Coun Angela Harrison, chairman of the licensing committee, said: “We felt the crime prevention objective was being undermined by selling smuggled goods and failure to comply with the conditions of the premises licence.
“We therefore have no faith in the effective management of the premises.
“The premises licence holder who is also the Designated Premises Supervisor (DPS) advised that the business had changed hands but accepts that no application had been made to transfer the licence or appoint a new DPS.
“We are very concerned that nobody appears to have total responsibility for the premises.
“For these reasons, we felt that there was no alternative but to revoke the premises licence.”
Mr Kuriakose was given 21 days to appeal the decision.
