A convenience store in Fulham has lost its licence to sell alcohol after Hammersmith & Fulham Council Trading Standards team claimed that the business is not attempting to trade legally.
Officers from the Hammersmith & Fulham Council Trading Standards team visited Jo Jo Convenience Store at 58 Fulham High Street over three years, seizing illegal and potentially unsafe goods for sale and issuing warning letters.
In one raid, officers confiscated 529 e-cigarettes containing six times the maximum permitted liquid level, and more than double the legal quantity of nicotine.
H&F Trading Standards officer Ladan Mohamud told Hammersmith & Fulham Council's licensing sub-committee that there had been 'a consistent and deliberate pattern of criminal behaviour' by successive licence holders Gajinder Singh Sachdeva and Kalyan Singh.
Officers seized non-duty paid bottles of vodka from the shelves. And further raids with sniffer dogs uncovered duty-free cigarettes and oversize vapes hidden in crisp boxes. Ms Mohamud said 'cheap' tobacco made it harder for smokers to quit, while illegal vapes increase the risk of house fires.
She called on the sub-committee to revoke the shop's licence and added that the vast majority of the illicit goods for sale were most likely distributed by organised crime groups.
On behalf of current licensee Kalyan Singh, Surendra Panchal told the committee that the shop owner had "pulled his socks up", and asked for a three-month licence suspension, rather than complete revocation. He blamed past breaches on the actions of the previous licence holder and promised shop training would be improved.
However, Doug Love, senior officer for H&F Trading Standards, told the sub-committee on Tuesday (20 January): "I recommend full revocation [of the licence] as the business is not attempting to trade legally."
He added that the seized goods were typically sold from "the back of vans or from iffy cash-and-carries".
After a 20-minute discussion, the sub-committee announced that the shop's licence would be revoked under the 2003 Licensing Act to prevent crime and disorder.