A CONVENIENCE store owner has been fined for selling illegal cigarettes and tobacco under-the-counter

Enforcement officers from Bolton Council discovered items which did not have mandatory health warnings on the packaging and other counterfeit products at A & A News in St Helens Road, Daubhill.

At Bolton Magistrates’ Court sole trader Jenifer Bogdan admitted 10 counts of possessing the prohibited goods for supply and three charges of possessing goods with a false trade mark for sale.

Magistrates heard that a sniffer dog found a box full of the black market items on a shelf under the counter at the shop in March. Officers counted 68 packets of cigarettes and 10 pouches of 50g of hand rolling tobacco without the legal health warnings and 10 pouches of 50g Golden Virginia hand rolling tobacco plus three packets of Mayfair cigarettes and 12 packets of counterfeit Richmond cigarettes.

Simon Gretton, defending, said 21-year-old Bogdan was a former employee who bought out the business in August 2015 with the hope of resurrecting it as a newsagents and Eastern European food store.

He said: “Only a week or so before the raid took place she was given the opportunity of buying some cigarettes from a Polish gentleman.

“She took that opportunity very foolishly. She didn’t realise it was such a bad thing to do.”

Bogdan, of Longfield Road, Daubhill, was fined £1,000 plus £550 in costs and charges.