A shopkeeper has been ordered to pay nearly £18,500 in fines and legal fees after admitting a string of licence breaches.
Manmeet Singh, of Euro Food & Wine, in Bath Road, Hounslow, admitted nine licensing infringements, according to Hounslow Council, including stocking more than 800 litres of beer on which no duty had been paid.
At Ealing Magistrates' Court on Thursday (August 6), he was fined £8,250 and told to pay £10,000 in legal costs, plus a £140 victim surcharge, the council said. He was also barred from acting as a supervisor in any licensed premises for six months.
According to the local authority, the 32-year-old, who lives in Croyde Avenue, Hayes, had already seen his licence revoked in February this year by the licensing panel after a child was sold cigarettes and alcohol at the shop in a test purchase. He initially appealed against that decision before withdrawing the appeal last month.
As well as selling duty-evaded liquor, the charges against Singh, who was the sole licensee at the store, included failing to put measures in place to prevent underage sales, failing to employ qualified security staff and failing to provide employee training.
Councillor Richard Foote, cabinet member for community protection, said: "Hounslow Council tried working with Manmeet Singh to get him to act responsibly. Unfortunately, he persistently breached his licensing conditions and ultimately we had to take legal action.
"Mr Singh faced up to six months imprisonment for his licencing breeches. The high fines may have hit him hard in the pocket but the outcome in court could have been a lot worse.
"There is a reason why the law bans the sale of alcohol and cigarettes to minors and also good reasons why staff must be properly trained. The fact he was caught doing so and then failed to act upon our advice was a major part of our case.
"He also had a very large quantity of beer and had not paid duty on it. Not only is this cheating the public purse but without the excise process, there is no quality control and we can't be sure what is being sold."
An application by Tarock Singh for a licence at the venue was subsequently rejected on Tuesday, August 11 by the council's licensing committee.
A council spokesman said Mr Singh, who had been caught selling alcohol to a minor at the store in February, had failed to prove the application would not add to crime and antisocial behaviour in the area.
The decision was one of the first tests of new licensing regulations recently adopted for Hounslow and Isleworth to tackle what the council described as a "proliferation" of pubs, clubs and off-licences in those areas.
