Spotland shop loses alcohol licence

A Spotland shop has been stripped of its alcohol licence after it was found to have sold booze to underage children and helped them hide it from the police.
 
The Right Price on Edenfield Road was told it could no longer sell alcohol following a hearing in front of Rochdale Council’s Licensing Panel.
 
The Panel heard evidence from police and trading standards officers, who outlined a catalogue of incidents relating to underage alcohol and cigarette sales, including the sale of £43 worth of alcohol to a 13-year-old girl.
 
Police Community Support Officer Daisy Edwards told the panel that in August this year a 15-year-old boy bought alcohol from the shop, while a police car was driving past. On seeing the car as he left the shop, the boy gave the drinks back to the shop assistant, who later met him around the corner and gave him the alcohol back when he believed the coast was clear. Police later seized the drinks.
 
PC Andrew Butcher, of the Rochdale North Neighbourhood Policing Team, said: “In all my time as a police officer, I have never come across a shop with so much criminality associated with it.

“As well as the major issue of selling to underage children, a number of fraudulently purchased goods have been delivered to the shop over a period of months and when a search warrant was executed on the flat above the shop, the person living there produced a false passport. On another occasion, a shop assistant presented us with fake ID.”
 
Lucia Renshaw, a team manager at the council’s Public Protection Service, told the committee that the shop had actually been in the council’s responsible retailers scheme, but was swiftly removed after cigarettes and alcohol were sold to underage test purchasers on two separate occasions.
 
Shop Owner Mohammed Yasin and store supervisor, Sarfraz Ahmed, both denied the incidents took place until they were shown CCTV evidence.
 
As well as having their alcohol licence removed, the committee ordered the removal of Sarfraz Ahmed as the store supervisor.
 
Councillor Martin Burke, Cabinet member for Internal and Environmental Services, said: “The owner and supervisor of this shop utterly failed in their most basic responsibilities as licence holders.
 
“In selling alcohol to children as young as 13, they were placing our young people at great risk and they have been justly brought to book.”