Wood Green off-licence fined over £2,000 after breaching licence

Owners of Oz Sultan, an off-licence in Wood Green have been fined over £2,000 after selling alcohol to an underage minor and stocking illegal tobacco.

Following two visits from the council’s Trading Standard officer last year, Haringey Magistrates court have concluded that the convenience store breached their license under Licensing Act 2003.

In August 2021, the council’s Trading Standards officer and underage volunteers carried out test purchases of age restricted goods across Haringey. During their visit, an employee of the business and brother of the business owner, sold a bottle of wine to a 16-year-old without asking for legal identification. Further investigation revealed that the local store did not keep written training records and were unable to demonstrate they had sufficient measures in place to prevent sales to persons under the age of eighteen.

Later that year in October, Haringey’s Trading Standards team returned to the premises with tobacco detection dogs after receiving intelligence that illegal tobacco was being sold.

During the visit, the dogs indicated the locked safe behind the counter contained tobacco. The employee who was in charge at the time attempted to mislead officers to prevent any further inspection of the safe and told them it was broken, and he was unable to open it. As a result of this, officers were forced to seize the entire safe and contents for further investigation.

Upon opening the safe, officers discovered over 4,500 cigarettes and 1.05kg of hand rolling tobacco. Further examination revealed that the tobacco was not Duty Paid, had incorrect health warnings and was not in the standardised packaging required by UK law. The duty value of the products seized totalled £1,612.29.

Both the owner of the store and the employee in charge at the time pleaded guilty and the court ordered the destruction of the illegal tobacco.

Cllr Dana Carlin, Cabinet Member for House Services, Private Renters and Planning, said: “This is another example of the excellent work Haringey's Trading Standard's Officers do to protect our local community and ensure those who do not comply with their licensing conditions face enforcement action.

“On two occasions, Oz Supermarket have failed to abide by the law. We hope that this substantial fine issued by the Magistrate’s Court will encourage the licensee as well as other businesses to face up their responsibilities and fulfil legal requirements.

“It is vital that we work together to keep people in our borough safe. We need residents to help us by reporting businesses when they have concerns about the mis-selling of alcohol or illegal tobacco.”

This case follows on from a Licence Review brought by Trading Standards in April 2022 in which the Licensing Sub Committee suspended the shops alcohol licence for three weeks and added 22 additional conditions to the licence to prevent any recurrence of the issues found.

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