Off-licence denies illegal sales - Booty Food and Wine owner Mohammed Kashif caught by police

Published: 06 January 2011
by JOSIE HINTON

AN off-licence will learn tonight (Thursday) whether it will lose its alcohol licence after allegedly being caught “repeatedly trading ill­egally” by police.

The owners of Booty Food and Wine faces a review panel at the Town Hall. Licensing officers claim they caught staff selling alcohol from behind closed shutters after the midnight curfew while a colleague acted as a “look-out” in the entrance.

The shop in Kentish Town Road, Camden Town, had its licence revoked in 2009, but the current staff say they have no connection with the previous owners. 

They maintain the ill­egal sale to undercover officers was a “one-off” and the member of staff involved has since been sacked.

But licensing officer PC Russell Kinson said: “The current licence holders claim to be nothing to do with the previous owners. However, staff members remained the same and the same patterns of illegal trading have continued.” He claimed management witnessed the sales happening. 

Camden’s mayor Councillor Jonathan Simpson wrote to police claiming he witnessed illegal sales taking place.

He said: “I was outside the off-licence at 12.30am. Despite having alcohol under shutters they were giving it to customers who reques­ted it. One gentleman was clearly very drunk and yet was served.”

But owner Moham­med Kashif said: “In May, a boy was caught illegally selling a can of beer to two officers and we were given a warning at that time. We sacked the member of staff and since then there has not been another incident. 

“We have provided CCTV to the police and they have not given us any evidence that it is not working. If our licence is revoked our business will be destroyed.”