Van loads of illegal alcohol, tobacco and vapes seized from Notting Hill Gate shop

Van loads of illegal alcohol, tobacco and vapes have been seized from a premises in Notting Hill Gate, as part of a licensing and trading standards operation.

What did officers discover?

Kensington and Chelsea Council's enforcement teams and Met Police visited the unlicenced premises in Notting Hill and found alcohol products on sale and other items displayed without proper labelling. A large quantity of alcohol, tobacco and vapes was found in the storage areas of the property. Council officers seized more than 1,000 alcohol products, over 300 vapes, 57,700 cigarettes and 9.3kg of rolling tobacco.

Why was the shop raided?

Despite previous warnings from the Council's enforcement teams, the shop continued to sell alcohol to members of public without obtaining a valid premises licence from the Council.

On two occasions last week, staff at the premises were also found selling alcohol to plain clothed Council officers and continued to ignore advice.

Cllr Cem Kemahli, Lead Member for Planning and Public Realm said:
"The scale of this raid is quite shocking, with the team needing more than one van to collect the goods. Selling alcohol without a licence is not only against the law, its also unfair to our legitimate shops, pubs and clubs but most importantly it puts members of the public at risk. Most businesses in our borough are responsible and play by the rules but where they don't, we will investigate and take action to keep people safe and to make sure it's an even playing field for compliant businesses."

Next steps

The vapes seized are alleged to have exceeded the legal tank capacity and some were allegedly incorrectly labelled while tobacco was suspected to be illicit.

The seizure is now part of an ongoing investigation involving the Council's licensing and trading standard teams. The premises cannot be named due to the ongoing investigation.