A NEWSAGENT and a shop worker have been ordered ot pay out £1,300 after selling cigarettes to children.
Dinyall Choudhary, owner of Star News, on Wilmslow Road, Rusholme, and his employee, Mohammed Khan, were each fined £350 plus costs after selling to two 13-year-olds in a sting.
Trading standards officers sent the teenagers into the store in April. They were sold a packet of Richmond Superkings by Khan without being asked their age.
Both men were found guilty in their absence after failing to appear at Manchester magistrates' court.
Khan must pay £287 costs and Choudhary £324 as well as the £350 fines.
Manchester's deputy leader, Coun Jim Battle, said: "The law is clear that to sell cigarettes to children is illegal and shopkeepers are advised if in doubt to check customers' ages.
"In this case the shopkeepers ignored all our attempts to meet and talk to them and clearly they thought they could get away with it.
"Our trading standards officers will prosecute shopkeepers who behave illegally and irresponsibly, such as Star News."
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Showing comments 1 to 21 and replies | View All
Mike S, Manchester (30/10/2009 at 11:06)
Knowall, stretford end (30/10/2009 at 11:12)
dessie, manchester (30/10/2009 at 11:17)
MPs gravy train, UK (30/10/2009 at 11:40)
BlueBoy1 , Bolton (30/10/2009 at 12:41)
Occasionally agreed with, Heald Green (30/10/2009 at 12:49)
Oh Hero !!!, The East side of the City. (30/10/2009 at 12:59)
Showing your true colours..
Unite against the UAF (30/10/2009 at 13:10)
BlueBoy1 , Bolton (30/10/2009 at 13:22)
As for showing my true colours - do you mean red white and blue? These colours don't run...
BlueBoy1 , Bolton (30/10/2009 at 13:38)
By showing my true colours are you implying that there were racist tones to my original message? I'll have you know that I am not racist - I have a coloured TV.
Is It Me? (30/10/2009 at 14:29)
sugar n spice, manchester (31/10/2009 at 03:08)
umpire 2, Salford M7 4HT (31/10/2009 at 08:50)
Oh Hero !!!, The East side of the City. (31/10/2009 at 23:53)
' lets face it the chances of Smith and Jones actually owning a corner paper shop these days are as likely as Kylie having my lovechild'. What a pathetic comment, you really need to get out more and broaden your mind, it seems like you have lived your entire life in Bolton.
influx of 'indigenous to our community'- since when was rusholme, wilmslow rd, your community!! if you had been there in the past ten years you'd know whose community it is!
'blatant disregard for our systems and laws' everytime you drive your car you always stick to the speed limits yeah. you never do 31mph in a 30 zone. youve never been 71mph or more on a motorway..all those thousands of people who do 71mph or more on motorways would they have a blatant disregard for our systems and laws?? if so, im definately one of those people.
if you havent got anything useful to say please shut up..
Oh Hero !!!, The East side of the City. (31/10/2009 at 23:59)
if you got some points on your driving license for speeding would you become a criminal. if you got arrested for being drunk and disorderly on saturday night, would you class yourself as a criminal?
drug dealers, rapists, murderers, burglers, are criminals not nesagents who sold some fags to a 13year old. its wrong no doubt but hardly the crime of the century, cut em some slack.
BlueBoy1 , Bolton (01/11/2009 at 09:50)
As for knowing who's community Rusholme Road is I'm perfectly aware who lives there, you only have to drive down the road and take in a breath of the air down there to realise that it is far from your normal English community area.
As for living all my life in Bolton, I am originally from Stretford which was a very decent place to live until it became an overspill for the families from Hulme and Old Trafford whos families started to grow everytime a PIA or Jamaica airline plane landed at Manchester airport.
As for likening slight driving offences as the same as more sereious crimes, why don't you run for parliament, I'm sure they'd love your tactics for raising crime statistics by catching driving offenders rather than serious criminal like murderers and rapists - I think you would find though that if you started pulling over the driving community from Wilmslow Road and the likes you would be amazed at how many don't have insurance or even driving licences - thats if they should even be in the country in the first place.
Get a life
Dev Patel (01/11/2009 at 11:40)
It is quite simply, the owners of this shop, blatantly showed no respect for the laws in this country and sold tobacco to a child and to add to this insult, the fined was pathetically insignificant.
What the hell has driving got to do with the fact that our country is now being overrun by legal and illegal immigrants repeating the benefits of what my parents, grandparents and generations before worked hard for, certainly not to let people flock here in their millions to rape and pillage our country.
Asylum seekers who passed safe countries on their way to Britain should be rejected immediately and not given a home and benefits and also the opportunity to purchase (financed by us taxpaying idiots) a corner shop in the first place.
If everybody does nothing, our children’s, children will be the minority, not that we are far from this now!!!!
Cynical Cynic (01/11/2009 at 12:35)
Equally it is illegal to purchase or attempt to purchase a product when you haven't reached the legal age to purchase to do so, whether it be tabacco, alcohol, lottery tickets etc.
What I don't understand is the reluctance, indeed refusal to prosecute for this offence. EVEN when fake ID is used by the purchaser!
Dev Patel (01/11/2009 at 15:51)
In today’s world, you will always get underage people attempting to purchase/obtain goods beyond their legal limits, all it needs if for shop keepers to request sight of the individuals ID rather than promoting the fact they don’t care about our laws.
Cynical Cynic (02/11/2009 at 09:28)
Local lad, outsidethebox (02/11/2009 at 13:19)