A Spalding shop that was found to be selling illegal cigarettes and smuggled alcohol has had its premises licence revoked.
The 7 Day Euro Shop on Westlode Street was stripped of the licence to serve alcohol at today’s (Thursday) meeting of South Holland District Council’s Licencing Panel pending any appeal after several police sting operations.
The license holder, Ali Hussein Hassani, was not present at the hearing.
Sgt Kim Enderby from Lincolnshire Police told the panel that police concerns over the shop spanned a number of months, starting in March when foreign branded cigarettes were purchased from the shop to test purchasers.
“They (the test purchasers) weren’t know to the shop, they walked in off the street,” Sgt Enderby told the panel.
He explained that this purchase was part of a fact-finding exercise so no action was taken at that stage but it put the put the shop “on the radar”.
“You don’t accidentally sell cigarettes of this type,” Sgt Enderby explained. “They are sold by criminals.”
At a second visit, in July this year, police seized 234 cans of strong later. “A key indicator is price,” explained Sgt Enderby.
He said if bought legally, the cans of 7.6% APV lager would have cost the shop a minimum of £1.13 per can.
“If they bought them legally, they’d be losing 13p on each can, which would be ludicrous,” said Sgt Enderby.
A third police visit took place later in July.
“Again purchases were able to walk into the store and purchase two packs of foreign branded cigarettes,” Sgt Enderby said.
He said police went in and confronted the female member of staff, who had gone through a door to fetch the cigarettes and put the money into her bag rather than the till.
Upon searching the shop, police found no illegal cigarettes but suspect they were stored at a residential premises behind the shop.
CCTV footage was requested but the member of staff claimed not to know the pin, how it worked, or who the designated premises supervisor was.
Other concerns included no signage related to underage sales of cigarettes and no till roll in the till.
After deliberation, the panel issued its verdict, read by chairman coun Jack Tyrell: “The premises licence holder has failed to attend. It appears that he made an attempt to surrender the license in advance of the hearing however not all formalities had been completed, most notably the original premises license had not been returned to the council.
“In the absence of the premises licence holder there was no evidence to suggest that the submissions of the police were incorrect.
“The panel found that the premises had been used for the storage of smuggled goods and indeed on two occasions non duty paid cigarettes had been sold to test purchasers.
“It was concerning that there was no DPS present when the police attended and nor did the staff know who to contact.
“Given the total lack of control over the premises the panel had no option but to revoke the premises license in order to promote the licensing objectives.”
The license holder has a right of appeal for 21 days. If no appeal is submitted then the revocation comes into action.
