- Fahd Al-Hajj tried to sell business lease for just £5,500 days after closure order
A shop owner, who sold vapes to children and shifted black market tobacco, has been told to shut down his newsagents.
And now the rogue faces a hefty fine after attempting to sell the lease just days after local officials ordered him to suspend business.
The closure comes amid a Government crackdown on vapes which has included the proposed banning of disposable vapes and an end to the dizzying range of flavours on offer.
Local investigators stepped in when staff at Liverpool One Newsagent were spotted selling vapes to children as well as running a counterfeit cigarettes empire.
Liverpool City Council officials seized illegal goods during a visit to the store in Whitechapel, Liverpool, but repeatedly found shelves re-stocked on follow-up visits in the weeks that followed.
Fahd Al-Hajj, who owned Liverpool One Newsagent, initially responded to warnings about the business by saying he had sacked staff who engaged in selling vapes to under-age buyers and who shifted counterfeit cigarettes.
Michael Hearty, Public Protection Enforcement Officer with LCC, said that despite giving the 47-year-old notice of a meeting in June 2023 he found the shop filled with illicit goods.
A closure notice was eventually issued on February 7 after multiple council visits.
But just three days later Al-Hajj tried to sell the business lease at the knockdown price of £5,500 to Al El-Gadhy, 41, who also owns a family run shop in Crosby, Merseyside.
It is thought that the landlord of the property was not made aware of the arrangement.
Al-Hajj, speaking with the help of an interpreter, asked the council in court whether they were aware of ‘how many teenagers’ he was ‘refusing to sell to every day’.
He said: ‘It was a staff mistake, out of my knowledge.
‘Some of them have been punished, some of them been fired.
‘I am already following the process by training the staff.
‘I just want to ask whether the council know how many teenagers we are refusing to sell to every day. Do they have any idea?
‘I have now sold the shop so I have nothing further to talk about.
‘I am already tired and exhausted.’
Father-of-two El-Gadhy said that he ‘was in the mosque praying’ when he heard about the ‘vapes malarky’.
He added that leases in Liverpool city centre normally go for more than £30,000 so the deal Al-Hajj offered was a ‘steal’.
‘I have seen Mr Al-Hajj at the mosque before, mostly on Fridays,’ he said.
‘We are in the Yemeni community.
‘He is not my best friend but I see him every Friday praying.
‘I have no social relations with him outside of the mosque.
‘I have been in shops my whole life and it will just be me and my son who will be working there.
‘I won’t be selling vapes. Vapes are off the menu.’
Despite El-Gadhy insisting he would run the newsagent ‘properly’, District Judge Tim Boswell ordered its closure for two months at Sefton magistrates court.
He said: ‘The concerns are that the sale to Mr El-Gadhy seems to have happened extremely quickly from discussions on Friday to instructing the accountant and completing the paperwork on the Saturday.
‘I am concerned about how legally robust this sale process.
‘The reality of the agreement is Mr Al-Hajj still retains some form of interest in the property and it is possible Mr Al-Hajj would continue to have some involvement in the premises and were Mr Al-Hajj still in charge of the shop he is unlikely to stop what was going on.
‘Therefore there is every chance of this behaviour continuing and every chance Mr Al-Hajj will continue to have an involvement.
‘The order is necessary to prevent the behaviour from continuing.’
Despite insisting he did not know the shop was facing closure for up to three months and that he believed the closure order would only apply to Al Hajj rather than the shop itself, El-Gadhy now faces having to paying £2,000 a month in rent whilst the shop remains closed.
Samuel Watson, a barrister for Liverpool City Council, said: ‘This is a long-standing problem of sales of vapes that do not conform with regulations and tobacco and cigarettes that have not gone through customs and also the sale of those products to people under the age of 18.
‘The operations going on at these premises do not relate to one single person but are a wider issue in the premises.
‘It is not just one person, it is the staff and the council says the order is necessary to prevent that from continuing.’
Disposable vapes are set to be banned in recent Government action to limit the use of the addictive products amid stats showing that a quarter of children had tried the nicotine-filled items.
Vapes’ popularity among young people has been branded an ‘epidemic’ with a lack of knowledge abut the long-term health impacts causing concern among officials.
A range of exotic flavours, as well as colourful branding and convenience of use, are thought to be behind the rise of the gadgets.
E-cigs are also set to be limited to a handful of flavours, sold in plain, tobacco-style packaging and displayed out of sight of kids under the ambitious plans.
It will mean the end of bubblegum ‘clouds’ and predatory packaging designed to make vapes look like highlighter pens.
New ‘on the spot’ fines will be brought in for shops illegally selling vapes to children, under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plan.
Experts, perhaps unsurprisingly, wish the Government had taken action to combat the problem sooner. Yet, the actions are undoubtedly welcomed.
Imperial College London’s Professor Andrew Bush, one of the UK’s most renowned paediatric respirologists, told MailOnline he is ‘100 per cent’ behind the plans.
‘I wish it had come in earlier, and I wish we were not waiting to the end of the year, but certainly good to hear this announcement,’ he said.
While acknowledging some of the concerns regarding how the ban could hit adults wanting to give up smoking, Professor Bush said they came second to stopping ‘out of control’ childhood vaping.
‘The interests of children and young people must be paramount,’ he said. ‘Childhood vaping is out of control, and something must be done.’
Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
