A Liverpool corner shop has had its alcohol licence suspended over an allegation it sold vodka to a 15-year-old boy.
The boy’s father complained to Liverpool City Council about Local News in Pilch Lane after discovering his son drunk late in December last year.
According to Mark Wainwright, a council enforcement officer, the father “ascertained he had bought a half bottle of vodka from Local News at about 1pm or 1.30”.
Mr Wainwright continued: “The parent went to the shop, quite angry, and confronted the staff, who initially denied it.”
However, after being shown a picture of the boy, the member of staff said he did remember the sale, but claimed the boy had been with a taller man who appeared to be in his 20s.
In a separate incident, Mr Wainwright said, a test purchase had resulted in a council officer being sold a packet of counterfeit cigarettes from Local News, the second time in two years that the premises had been caught selling illegal cigarettes.
He told a meeting of the council’s licensing sub-committee on Wednesday morning: “What we are dealing with here is a poorly managed and run off-licence.”
In his defence, the shop’s owner Mohammed al-Nahari denied that the 15-year-old had bought the vodka from his shop, claiming the staff member who spoke to the boy’s father, Sam Ali, had only said he recognised the boy because he was frequently hanging around the shop and causing trouble.
However, because he had failed to maintain the shop’s CCTV system – a requirement of his licence – he was unable to produce footage of the alleged incident.
It also emerged during the hearing that he had not maintained a record of times when people had been refused alcohol until last week, which is a further breach of his licence conditions.
Regarding the sale of counterfeit cigarettes, Mr al-Nahari claimed he had no knowledge of this and had sacked the employee involved, saying he must have been selling them of his own accord to make some money on the side.
In 2018, when the shop was first found to be selling counterfeit cigarettes, Mr al-Nahari had accepted a police caution.
Mr al-Nahari’s representative, Paul Douglas, described the failures as “complacency” and said his client fully accepted that work had to be done to improve the management of his shop.
But Cllr Malcolm Kelly said Mr al-Nahari had shown “complete ignorance” rather than complacency in running the shop.
Suspending the shop’s alcohol licence for a month, committee chair Cllr Christine Banks told Mr al-Nahari he had to use the time to put in proper training and procedures for the sale of alcohol.
She said: “You have got conditions and you have got to abide by those conditions.”
