'News & Booze' shop now can't sell booze after fake cigarettes found in microwave
A Black Country shop owner has been banned from selling alcohol after repeatedly being caught selling fake cigarettes.
Shamim Khan, the proprietor of ‘News and Booze’ in the town centre, sold packets of illegal cigarettes for as little as £3 a pack, Walsall Council said.
Trading standards officers first searched the shop in August 2019 and found 10 packets of 'Gold Classic' cigarettes hidden in a microwave oven in the storeroom.
Mr Khan claimed the cigarettes, which can not be sold in the UK and do not have plain packaging, were for his own personal use and was warned by the council.
However undercover shoppers returned to the shop four times between December 2019 and August 2020 and were able to buy cigarettes for between £3 and £5 - around a quarter of the typical price of a cigarette packet.
A Walsall Council Licensing and Safety Committee review meeting was told Mr Khan had “exhibited a flagrant disregard of his responsibilities as a premises licence holder.”
In support of revoking his licence, public health told the committee of the serious health risks that illegal tobacco poses to children and young people, while West Midlands Fire service shared concerns over fake tobacco’s increased flammability and heightened toxicology.
The licensing committee members unanimously approved the removal of Mr Khan's licence, saying that his actions posed a considerable health risk to his customers and young people.
The committee heard that the tobacco is produced in unsanitary conditions and is then smuggled in to the United Kingdom with no regulatory checks and will often contain banned chemicals.
Councillor Garry Perry, deputy leader of Walsall Council and the portfolio holder for safer communities and regulatory services, said: “Mr Khan was made fully aware by Trading Standards that his actions were not only illegal and harmful but would also put his licence at risk.
"Yet he still chose to sell cheap counterfeit cigarettes to undercover officers on four separate occasions.
"He deliberately and ‘flagrantly’ chose to ignore our warnings and carried on putting the health and safety of his customers at risk.
"The council, police and fire service have all carefully assessed the evidence and voiced serious and shared concerns about his suitability to hold a licence in Walsall.
“It was therefore the committee’s unanimous decision to revoke it. “
