Licensee allowed booze to be sold to teen

A licensee who allowed an illegal immigrant to sell alcohol to a teenager is appearing before a licensing panel next week.

Mrs Jasvinder Seera, who runs DS Wines in Great Bridge, has already been prosecuted before for selling booze to a teenager and now faces having heavy restrictions placed on her licence.

At next Tuesday's meeting, Sandwell's licensing panel will hear how Indian national Mr Karanjit Singh Nahal sold a bottle of Reef to a 15-year-old who was part of a Trading Standards-run test purchasing exercise. The application for the review of the Whitehall Road off-licence has been made by Trading Standards on the grounds of protecting children from harm.

A report to be presented to the licensing panel says that on October 27, 2008, a bottle of Reef orange vodka drink was sold to the teenager by an unsupervised and untrained friend of the family. The report, written by licensing officer Julie Hadley, said the council's Trading Standards team was operating a test purchase exercise to see if the premises would sell alcohol to an underage volunteer. DS Wines was the first shop visited that evening and Mr Singh Nahal sold the bottle to the volunteer without any attempt to ask him his age.

The report added that licensee Mrs Seera has already been prosecuted at West Bromwich Magistrates Court for selling a bottle of Archers Aqua Schnapps to a person under 18. On January 9, 2007, she was fined £600 and ordered to pay costs of £800. This followed the sale of alcohol to a minor on August 1, 2006. The report said: "Furthermore, after the second visit by the same officer to DS Wines on the 15 November 2007, Mrs Seera allowed a further sale to a minor on the 27 October 2008.

"The seller of the alcohol on the latter date is an illegal immigrant, a fact which has been confirmed in a witness statement supplied by the UK Border Agency."