STORE STRIPPED OF LICENCE

Local residents complained of daily intimidation, harassment and fighting as gangs of young people and people with drink and drug problems gathered outside the Premier Convenience Store, Hankinson Way.

One customer, who was chased into the store by a gang of youths begged staff to call the police but was thrown back outside by an employee with help from one of the attackers. CCTV footage of the incident, which had been requested by the police, was then wiped. 
 
Staff were seen selling single cans of high strength alcohol and single cigarettes to young people and on one occasion sold high strength alcohol to a drug user who had injected heroin outside the shop and gone in with a tourniquet still visible on his arm.
 
Councillor David Lancaster, lead member for environment and community safety, said the behaviour and attitude of the staff and licence holder was unbelievable and the only step was to revoke the licence completely. 
 

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“We heard report after report from people and the police of the problems the poor management and practices of this store were causing on a daily basis but the licence holder denied all responsibility,” he said.
 
“He even backed the actions of his staff over the appalling way they treated a man being attacked by a group last September. Instead of calling the police the staff member told the victim to leave and then encouraged the attackers to come into the shop to remove the victim.
 
“Police say there is evidence that the victim was clinging to shelves to prevent being thrown outside to his attackers and was assaulted inside the shop but the shopkeeper helped one of the attackers to forcefully throw him back outside to the group.
 
“Police officers were told on the day that the member of staff had no access to the CCTV footage. When they went back three days later the licence holder had wiped the footage earlier that day as the hard drive was full. He denied being aware that the police wanted the footage,  even though he knew a serious incident had occurred and defended the actions of his employee, claiming he was trying to remove someone who had been banned from the shop and a member of the public helped. 
 
“He showed no concern at all for the wellbeing of an assault victim being attacked inside his shop and was more concerned about damage to his stock. It’s utterly irresponsible and not the kind of behaviour we expect from a responsible licence holder. The licensing committee had no confidence that any conditions they could impose would improve the situation and therefore have removed the licence.

In December 2017, the store owner Atif Ashraf, 31 was prosecuted for food safety offences after failing to deal with a serious mouse infestation and having sandwiches on sale which were 26 days past their sell by date.