Shop banned from selling booze - after child bought cheap foreign cigarettes

[dutchman]

Trading standards officers sent a young volunteer into the shop with a hidden camera who asked for some “cheap” cigarettes



A Coventry shop has been banned from stocking alcohol - after selling cheap knock-off cigarettes to a child.

Trading Standards officers launched an investigation after reports that children had been seen smoking outside Qad’Z Local in Heath Road, Stoke.

Coventry City Council said a young volunteer was sent into the shop fitted out with a hidden camera and asked for some “cheap” cigarettes.

The shop assistant took a packet of illegal cigarettes from an area between a refrigerator and a display of crisps and sold them for £3 without asking for proof of age.

The money went straight into the till.

Officers immediately entered the shop to search for any illegal tobacco products and found a tray full of cigarettes which were either foreign labelled or failed to have the appropriate health warnings in English.

Shopkeeper Mohammed Naseer Qadiri, 33, was unable to offer any explanation for the sale or show that he had proper control over activities taking place in his shop, said the council.

As a result, Coventry City Council’s Licensing and Regulatory Sub–Committee revoked his alcohol premises licence at a meeting yesterday.

They heard that he had failed to prevent the illegal trade in cigarettes in his store and had failed to meet the licence objectives of protecting children from harm by exposing them to alcohol by the sale of cheap cigarettes.

He had also:

• failed in the prevention of crime by having illegal tobacco products
  
• had ignored advice given by trading standards officers in a warning letter
  
• and had deliberately obstructed officers when they asked for CCTV footage after he had been seen disposing of items in a plastic bag

[rebbonk]

Looking at those last few points he ought to have been barred from keeping such a store at all.