Southall shop found with illegal cigarettes and Indian tobacco
Sat 17 Dec 2022
News & Booze (aka Best Buy & Save), located at 49 Western Road, Southall, was visited twice over the last 12 months by Ealing Council’s Licensing and Trading Standards Officers.
Officers wanted Ealing Council to revoke the store's license for breaking the law after they seized over 600 packs of illegal cigarettes and other items.
On 15 December 2021, officers from the Trading Standards and Licensing team visited the premises as part of a London wide Trading Standards operation to look for illicit cigarettes and tobacco.
Officers found illicit goods behind the counter and, after discovering a car key in the premises, a search of the associated vehicle revealed further illicit tobacco and cigarettes, some of which were counterfeit. The vehicle was registered to Mr Surbir Singh, premises licence holder for News & Booze.
Officers seized 580 packets of cigarettes and tobacco.
On 4 October 2022, Trading Standards and Licensing officers visited the premise for another inspection. Behind the counter was Mr Surbir Singh. Since illicit products had been found in his vehicle in 2021, officers asked if there were illicit products in his vehicle this time, to which Mr Singh replied, “just a little”.
Inside the van, officers found 3 large cardboard boxes which contained 60 packets of counterfeit cigarettes, 9.1kg of Indian tobacco and 20.4kg of unlabelled poppy power. The boxes also contained medication to treat erectile dysfunction - 170 sildenafil tablets and 3 packets of Kamagra.
The unpaid duty on the products amounts to over £1500.
The future of the News & Booze license was decided by the Ealing Council Sub-Licensing Committee on Wednesday 7th December 2022.
In coming to its decision, the sub-committee carefully considered the papers before it, the verbal representations from Mr Robert Dear, Licensing Enforcement Officer and the Premises Licence Holder, Mr Surbir Singh, through his agent, Mr Surendra Panchal.
Having carefully considered all the representations the licensing subcommittee decided to revoke the licence for News & Booze.
Mr Panchal, speaking on behalf of Mr Singh, said that Mr Singh had stopped selling illicit products after his first and final warning on 15 December 2021. from licensing officers in 2021.
He also offered the flimsy excuse that the large quantity of illicit products found in Mr Singh’s vehicle on 4 October 2022, were not for sale.
Having an invoice for an illicit product does not make it legitimate. This demonstrated a clear misunderstanding of the responsibilities by the owner of a licenced premises.
There was little remorse shown for having possessed illicit products and potentially dangerous products, particularly the poppy seeds and their risk to children.
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