A convenience store in Chorley has had its premises licence suspended after workers sold a knife and alcohol to underage teens in separate incidents within a fortnight of each other.
According to local reports, Greenwoods General Store, on Seymour Street, failed two so-called “test purchases” by trading standards earlier this summer. In the first incident, the outlet was visited in mid-May by 13 and 15-year-old youths who were sold a trimming knife by shop owner Paviter Singh, who also holds the legal role of designated premises supervisor for the business.
In June first week, one of Singh’s employees allowed a 17-year-old boy – accompanied by a 16-year-old girl – to buy four bottles of Stella lager.
A meeting of Chorley Council’s licensing panel heard that Lancashire Police had “grave concerns” about how the store was being run in the wake of the two unlawful sales.
Members voted for a six-week suspension of the premises licence, during which time the shop will be unable to sell alcohol. However, that prohibition will not kick in until a 21-day deadline for an appeal against the decision has passed.
A series of police-requested conditions will also be imposed on the business, including the adoption of a “Challenge 25” policy, under which anyone who appears to be younger than 25 will be asked to provide identification when buying an age-restricted product to prove that they are old enough to make the purchase.
The panel was told that the test sale of the knife was part of a nationwide initiative and that, prior to that random visit, the authorities had no “intelligence” to cause them any concern about Greenwoods, which Singh has operated for four years.
However, Lancashire Police Constable Stephen Connolly said that the trimming knife sold to the young teens – which a trading standards officer described as a “plastic-handled Stanley knife” – was a serious article that could do “very precise, very deep damage to the skin”.
Asked by panel why he had allowed the underage sale of knife, Singh claimed to have asked the age of the older of the two teens and been told he was 16, adding, “But my mind [has then] completely gone blank and I never asked for his ID and refused the sale. There was a lot going on in the shop.
“I wasn’t aware 18 [was the minimum age] for the trimming knife, so I [did] the sales at that time,” Singh explained.
Lancashire County Council trading standards officer Jason Middleton told the hearing that test purchasers are instructed “not to lie” about their age – and so said he had “no idea” why the 15-year-old would have claimed to be 16.
“I’m not aware of the test purchasers being asked for [their] age,” he added.
The panel was played covert footage taken during the sale of the alcohol by the shop assistant, which PC Connolly said showed that the pair had displayed a degree of nervousness about what they were doing – but that the staff member had not made “any sort of eye contact” with them.
Representing Singh, solicitor Glen Smith said that the retailer “did not at any time…try to shy away from” the seriousness of the two incidents, nor to “pass responsibility to his employee” for the alcohol sale.
“He accepts that, on those occasions…he fell significantly short of the high standards that quite understandably exist and are expected of any designated premises supervisor,” Smith said. “The issue, I would submit, is for him to learn from the mistakes he made and learn those [lessons] as quickly as possible – because his livelihood and the livelihood[s] of those people that he employs is in danger if he doesn’t.”
Singh had now put his staff through the county council’s Challenge 25 training – one of the conditions that members then voted to impose on the premises licence.
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