A SHOP has lost its licence to serve alcohol after its owner failed to show at two hearings about illicit tobacco allegedly found on his premises last year.

Halliwell Off Licence, also known as Sultania News, had its premises licence revoked following an online hearing which the licence holder failed to attend.

Shuaib Ahmed also failed to attend a court hearing last October, according to officers who told the panel that a warrant has been issued for him to appear.

Bolton Council trading standards officers visited the shop with a tobacco detection dog on March 27, 2019 and interviewed Mr Ahmed on May 1.

In total, 139 packets of cigarettes and seven packets of hand rolling tobacco were seized from the shop on the day, but Mr Ahmed said he did not know that the illegal tobacco was in his shop as he had been away at the time of the visit.

A man who was present at the premises, who gave his name as Beston Meilla, and said he was looking after the shop as he was a friend of the owner.

He also denied the tobacco was his and said that he did not know it was there.

During the visit, the officers found a small grey drawer unit containing illegal tobacco behind the till area and a large cardboard box full of illegal tobacco in the back area of the premises, according to a report presented at the hearing.

The tobacco products were seized as they were not in plain packaging and some did not have warnings in English.

A packet of cigarettes was scanned at the till which showed a price of £3.50, but this was less than tobacco duty alone, according to the council report.

Mr Ahmed was asked in his interview if he could explain why the cigarettes scanned in his till and he replied that he was surprised, but that he had shown his friend how the till worked before he went away, according to the council.

Licensing officer Elizabeth Pritchard told the councillors on Monday that Mr Ahmed had not responded to the local authority’s attempts to contact him.

She said: “The phone number that we had for him is dead, we sent an email to which we’ve received no response and we’ve sent paper work by post to his home address.

“A visit to the shop resulted in them informing us that he is no longer there and also that they no longer sell alcohol.”

The licensing sub-committee voted to revoke the premises licence.