\n Dana Local, on Duncan Street in Leeds City Centre, was taken to a licensing hearing after a court closure order was issued.\n<\/p>\n
\n Police and Trading Standards officers said cigarettes and vapes were found stashed behind a false wall at the premises.\n<\/p>\n
\n Acting sergeant\u00a0Andy Clifford told councillors: \u201cIt\u2019s our stance that this premises is involved in serious criminality by way of storing and selling illicit goods.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThese are goods that will have had to be smuggled into the country.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n A petition in support of the licence holder, Dana Husseni, was submitted to the hearing on Tuesday, along with character references.\n<\/p>\n
\n Bahram Shokrollahi, representing Mr Husseni, said a rogue employee was responsible for the illicit goods.\n<\/p>\n
\n He said: \u201cThis represents a serious betrayal of trust by a staff member who has since been dismissed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n A hidden compartment in the shop was for the storage of valuables, not illicit goods, Mr Shokrollahi said.\n<\/p>\n
\n He asked the council to reconsider a previous decision to revoke the licence and instead suspend it until August 25.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Husseni would step down as designated premises supervisor and appoint a trained person to run the premises.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Shokrollahi said: \u201cHe has already paid a high price, emotionally and financially.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere is no evidence of continuing criminal activity.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n A letter of support said: \u201cHe is a hard-working\u00a0business owner who takes his duties seriously and has consistently demonstrated a commitment to legal compliance and respectful conduct in his professional dealings.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n The closure order was issued at Kirklees Magistrates\u2019 Court on July 15.\n<\/p>\n
\n A licensing sub-committee was asked to decide if further action was needed at the hearing at Leeds Civic Hall.\n<\/p>\n
\n Councillors unanimously voted to revoke the premises licence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dana Local, on Duncan Street in Leeds City Centre, was taken to a licensing hearing after a court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,393,4884,1860,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-323019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-leeds","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114982925386697283","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}