Wolverhampton shop loses licence after hundreds of illegal cigarette packets and Viagra-like pills seized
A shop where hundreds of illegal cigarette packets and Viagra-like pills were seized following a raid has lost its licence.
Members of Wolverhampton Council’s licensing sub committee opted to revoke the premises licence of Salvo’s Convenience, in Parkfield Road, following a hearing on Tuesday.
Trading Standards called for the review of the licence after a range of suspected illicit tobacco products and pharmacy-subscribed Cildamax Sildenafil Citrate 100mg tablets – used for treating erectile dysfunction – were found on a visit in March.
This had followed a test purchase set up weeks before the raid in which a customer was sold a packet of suspected counterfeit Richmond cigarettes for £4 by previous shop owner Angelo Salvo.
Mr Salvo admitted making a “bad conscience call” in selling the cigarettes to a member of the public and apologised for what he’d done.
He added that he sold the shop to someone not connected to him or his family last month.
At the hearing, Trading Standards officer Dianne Slack said they, along with police and a tobacco detection dog attended Salvo’s following the test purchase.
They discovered the cigarette gantry was open with products for sale on display, which is contrary to tobacco advertising regulations.
A search of the premises discovered suspected counterfeit Richmond cigarettes, duty free LIFA menthol cigarettes, foreign branded cheap white Richman cigarettes, hand rolling tobacco bearing foreign warnings and seven of the tablets.
In a van outside the shop, which she said belonged to the manager, a further 1,160 packets of ‘duty free only’ marked LIFA menthol cigarettes and 329 Cildamax Sildenafil Citrate 100mg tablets were discovered.
She added the shop had been previously warned about the sale of illicit tobacco in February 2015.
Broken
This followed a raid in September 2014 which saw the discovery of 454 cigarette sticks identified as cheap foreign whites, 600g of foreign-labelled Golden Virginia and Amber Leaf hand-rolling tobacco, and a discarded 200-cigarette sleeve for Presidents, also identified as cheap foreign whites.
Trading Standards’ call to revoke the licence were supported by the city’s licensing and public health departments.
Mr Salvo said the cigarette gantry had been broken for two years and efforts to get it fixed had been unsuccessful so he had been covering the stock with black bags.
He denied the tablets were ever on sale in the shop and said they belonged to his father, who had been prescribed them for between 10 to 15 years.
But he said he had turned to buying illegal cigarettes for personal use as a result of mounting financial pressures. This grew into him selling them to family and friends.
He said: “The cigarettes, we did sell a few. I’m not going to lie and I’m not trying to justify that either. I do apologise for what I have done. Unfortunately, it was a situation I got caught in.
“I first bought the cigarettes for myself and even when I first started selling them, we tried to keep it within the family and close friends and not to sell to the open public.
“We couldn’t afford the proper cigarettes at the time – with all my debts and bills with the shop.
“When the purchasing guy first came in, I did refuse him twice.
“I don’t know why I decided to give them to him as he wasn’t a family member or a friend but I kind of felt sorry for him. I was thinking he didn’t have enough money and I felt bad. It was a bad conscience call.”
