Shop hit by licence suspension

Slough: Alleged underage sales

An off-licence has had its premises licence temporarily suspended by

Slough Borough Council following a police probe into alleged underage sales.

The Farnham Off Licence in 240 Farnham Road had its licence temporarily removed for three months and its designated premises supervisor (DPS), who oversees the day-to-day running of the store, removed in order to make the necessary changes.

Thames Valley Police (TVP) reviewed the shop after they received accusations of the off-licence’s owner ‘knowingly’ selling alcohol and nitrous oxide cannisters and balloons to minors.

This was denied by the shop’s DPS Param Puneet Singh Sabharwal.

Speaking at the meeting on Wednesday, he said: “I never served to any underage person in my life. I don’t know where this is coming from.”

The police further say an employee of the store, who worked there for two years, had no right to work in the UK and also claim TVP was unable to obtain CCTV when an alleged sexual assault of a 17-year-old female happened inside the premises in November 2021.

Because it couldn’t obtain the footage, TVP said at the licensing sub-committee meeting that the case was dropped.

The store also breached one of its conditions by

not submitting the footage to the police.

Elsewhere, cigarettes that had non-English packaging and unlabelled white pots containing shisha were seized and two large nitrous oxide canisters and three boxes of NOS cannisters were found behind the counters with small plastic bags.

TVP licensing officer Gary Clarke said the force had ‘no confidence’ in the store and urged councillors to revoke its licence.

Mr Sabharwal claimed during that time when the alleged sexual assault happened, their CCTV monitoring system was down due to a water leak and, when replaced, had the hard drives updated, making it impossible to hand over the footage.

He also said he had evidence and invoices of the repair work but did not submit it for the subcommittee to consider.

The shop’s representative said they are working on improvements to the store, such as further DPS training, rigorous employee background checks, and staff training.

He also suggested temporarily suspending the shop’s premises licence for one month for these changes to take effect.

Councillors sitting on the licensing sub-committee decided to remove Mr Sabharwal as the shop’s DPS for a new one to be in place and suspend the off-licence’s premises licence temporarily for three months in order for the changes to take effect.