Store's licence suspended for fake wine sales (From Swindon Advertiser)

Store's licence suspended for fake wine sales

11:20am Saturday 11th February 2012 in News

A SHOP caught selling counterfeit Jacob’s Creek wine had its premises licence suspended for two months.

Abby’s, in Manchester Road, Broadgreen, sold a bottle of fake Jacob’s Creek pinot grigio to an Environmental Health officer on March 31, 2011.

In the past five years, it has also been caught with non-UK duty paid tobacco and alcohol, as well as 10 unclassified pornographic DVDs.

Yesterday, the licensing panel yesterday imposed several sanctions on the store, including that its licence to sell alcohol be suspended for eight weeks and that Navaratnam Sathiyathevan be removed as supervisor.

The decision will take effect in 21 days, providing the joint premises licence holders, Arumugam Raveendran and Navaratnam Sathiyathevan, do not first appeal to magistrates, in which case there will be no change until the outcome of the case.

Russell Sharland, of Trading Standards, which brought the licence review, said: “Counterfeiting of alcohol misleads consumers into purchasing poor quality products which potentially could have serious public health consequences.”

The panel heard that a representative of Pernod Ricard, the trademark holder, carried out a survey in Swindon on March 25, following complaints from customers, and found counterfeit Jacobs Creek pinot grigio and semillon sauvignon blanc wine on sale at Abby’s.

On March 31, an Environmental Health officer bought a counterfeit bottle of pinot grigio. He saw nine other bottles on the shelf, two of which bore spelling errors, including Austrlia for Australia.

Manuharan Sinnerejah, representing the licence holders, said the store had destroyed the bottles.

Mr Sinnerejah said: “We apologise. I don’t want them to be punished and they’re putting their hands up.”