Sale of alcohol restricted at store

Saturday 7th March 2009, 9:50AM GMT.

A Shropshire shopkeeper has been banned from selling alcohol after 4pm after staff sold drink to teenagers as young as 14.

But Jaswant Singh, licensee and supervisor of Top Shop, a convenience store in Laburnum Drive, Oswestry, says the restrictions will kill her business, as alcohol accounts for half of her sales.

At the meeting of Oswestry Borough Council’s licensing sub-committee yesterday councillors allowed Mrs Singh to keep her licence but added conditions.

They included restricting the sale of alcohol to between 8am and 4pm, Monday to Saturday, and from 10am until 4pm on a Sunday.

Mrs Singh said: “I will be appealing against the times. It’s after 4pm we have our alcohol sales. It will kill our business.”

West Mercia Police applied for the review after the shop breached the licensing condition concerning the “protection of children from harm.”

A report to the committee said police came across a 16-year-old boy on January 6, 2008, with four cans of lager from Top Shop, and a 17-year-old male on April 25, 2008, in possession of six litres of cider he said he purchased from Top Shop.

The report added: “On February 15, 2007, trading standards officers conducted a test purchase operation at Top Shop using a 14-year-old volunteer. The volunteer was able to purchase two bottles of WKD Blue.”

View more: Oswestry news, West Mercia Police news.