Bolton: Store which lost licence due to illegal cigs makes fresh bid

Council officers visited California Wines on Wigan Road, Deane, in September last year.

Trading Standards seized a total of more than 80 vapes, more than 8,000 cigarettes and around two and a half kilos of tobacco.

Some of the tobacco had been thrown onto the roof in black bin bags while they were in attendance at the store.

And in the aftermath of this the store lost its licence to sell alcohol.

But now it has launched a bid to gain a licence with Bolton Council.

The notification states it wants to sell alcohol between 7am and 1am between Monday and Sunday.

The hours are the entire hours at which the store is open.

The shop owner at the time it lost its licence was Masoud Salimi of M&N Store Limited. But the licence hearing heard he was soon to be passing on the lease to the store.

The fresh licence appeal has been launched by Pulla Mohammed Ahmed.

However staff at the store have declined to comment on the fresh application.

The deadline for representations on the licence was June 4.

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Following this discovery of the chute, a hearing took place in which the licence was lost in March this year.

A report following this said: “The machine pushed pressure down to pistons and these pistons pushed packets down a chute.

“There were eight different buttons and eight different brands of cigarettes.

“The sophistication of this concealment highlights how lucrative this illegal activity is, the clear criminal intention of the operators of these premises and how organised this illegal activity is.”

Source – INDIA TV