Licence review of Walsall shop selling fake cigarette

Test purchases were carried out at News & Booze in Ablewell Street on four occasions in 2019 and 2020, with cheap packets of illicit cigarettes being sold to the ‘customer’ on each occasion.

Owner Shamim Khan said he had bought counterfeit cigarettes at a market for his own use and took them to the shop to smoke during the day. His customers spotted the packets and started enquiring about buying them and, after initially refusing, Mr Shamim relented and began selling them.

A review of his premises licence will be held by Walsall Council’s licensing committee on Wednesday, February 3.

In the application for a licence review, the authority’s chief inspector of weights and measures Stuart Powell said Trading Standards received complaints about illegal tobacco products being sold there.

Caught

Officers visited the shop in August 2019 and found 10 packets of Gold Classic cigarettes, known as ‘cheap whites’, which Mr Shamim said were for his own use.

They were seized with officers believing they were for sale and he was warned he could face tougher action if he continued to sell counterfeit cigarettes.

But a test purchase carried out in December that year saw a pack of 20 Mayfair Original Blue – which were later established to be fake – sold for £3 when they normally retail at £10.30.

Another test purchase in February 2020 saw a pack of 20 counterfeit Mayfair Kingsize sold for £3.50, while in July 2020, 20 Superking were bought for £5 with no picture health warnings on and not in plain packaging or with a duty paid mark on it.

And the following month, another packet of Mayfair was sold to the test purchaser for £5 – again in branded packaging and not plain.

Mr Powell said: “The premises licence holder has ignored the warning given by Trading Standards about putting his licence in jeopardy by selling illegal cigarettes.

“The consequence of his continuing and regular course of conduct in selling these products should now be brought into effect with the revocation of the premises licence.”

Mr Shamim’s solicitor Masawar Iqbal said revocation of the licence would devastate the family as 90 per cent of the business income relies on licensed activity.

'Huge shame and punishment'

Mr Iqbal said large quantities had not been found at the shop, nor had Mr Shamim been in trouble with Trading Standards prior to 2019 since acquiring the business 20 years earlier, and asked for leniency from the committee.

He said: “Mr Shamim has had an enforcement notice put on his shop front as a result of his own actions. This in itself has caused huge shame and punishment for a figure such as Mr Shamim.

“Mr Shamim is extremely ashamed and feels he has tainted his own character by resorting to what the Trading Standards have presented.

“There is no doubt that Mr Shamim now is remorseful for what has done. He now understands the gravity of the situation as I have had a chance to explain to him that the applicant is asking for the premises licence to be revoked.

“A time had come where a sleeve of cigarettes was taken to the shop for personal use, and customers would enquire about them.

“Initially Mr Shamim refused several customers but eventually became the architect to his own downfall by selling odd packets of cigarettes here and there.

“Mr Shamim is not by any means justifying his shameful act, he states that given the the difficult times all businesses faced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic Mr Shamim accepts that he wrongly did acts that he had not done hither to 2019.

“Mr Shamim would like to be given an opportunity to redeem himself in the eyes of the council and the law.”