Lillie Road Store Faces Loss of Alcohol Licence
Best Quality Food and Wine allegedly sold to underage customers
Best Quality Food and Wine on Lillie Road.
October 17, 2025
A store faces on Lillie Road faces having its licence revoked over alleged repeated sales of vapes and alcohol to underage teenagers, including one instance which left a 16-year-old girl hospitalised for two days.
Best Quality Food and Wines is to be hauled in front of Hammersmith and Fulham councillors next week (21 October) with a litany of allegations made against it dating back several years.
The council’s Trading Standards team, which requested the review with support from Licensing and the Met Police, has detailed in documents a long list of instances where age-restricted items are reported to have been sold.
These include claimed sales of vapes and alcohol to local schoolchildren, with complaints made to Trading Standards, as well as to underage teenagers taking part in test purchases on behalf of the team.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) visited the store this week, but was told no comment would be provided for this story.
In his application requesting a review of Best Quality Food and Wines, Doug Love, Lead Practitioner at Trading Standards, outlines the extensive history of the business relating to reported sales of age-restricted items.
In July 2023, by which time several alleged instances of sales of alcohol and vapes to underage buyers had been recorded, Mr Love notes a complaint that was received claiming the shop sold four 200ml bottles of vodka to four female students aged 14 to 15.
“They have then attended school very drunk and two of them were admitted to hospital after being sick with concerns for their welfare,” the complaint continued.
In a test purchase organised for later the same month Tara Ram Singh, the store’s premises licence holder, sold alcohol to a 16-year-old female volunteer.
Mr Love wrote that in retrospect, “it seems clear that a review application should have been made at this time and we are sorry that Trading Standards did not submit one, as the subsequent events may have been averted if we had”.
At this point Mr Singh and the company agreed to accept cautions and attended training. A further underage test also resulted in no sales. Mr Love however continues to outline the events which led to the forthcoming review.
The first, dated April 2025, was a complaint referred to Trading Standards by the Citizens’ Advice Consumer Helpline claiming a woman’s 17-year-old son had bought a vape from the premises, she knew it had sold to 16-year-olds and that it “was known as the place to go for underage children to buy vapes”.
The second event, however, resulted in something far more serious.
Mr Love writes about a complaint received by a member of the public detailing how her daughter and two of her friends, all underage, went to the shop on 12 July. One of her daughter’s friends allegedly bought a vape, while the other, aged 16 and visiting from Scotland, bought a bottle of Smirnoff vodka.
The visiting girl is then alleged to have taken the alcohol back to Scotland with her, and that after drinking much of the bottle she was hospitalised for two days, including in intensive care.
A separate representation filed in the meeting pack is from a parent of the girl, who describes finding their daughter “unresponsive” having had no idea she was in possession of alcohol. They write how they began to panic and assumed it was a drugs overdose, and so called an ambulance.
“At no stage did we think this was alcohol: one of the first things I did when I discovered her in that state was to smell her breath, and the paramedics did the same shortly after they arrived,” they write.
“There was no smell (of course, in retrospect this would be the case with vodka). C (the name given to protect the girl’s identity) spent that night and the following night in hospital, in the Intensive Care Unit, and put under heavy sedation to stop seizures. She was finally discharged on 18 July.
“After waking the morning after admission, she explained to her mother about the vodka, and told her where it was being kept. I then retrieved it from her wardrobe, and there was only a fifth of a bottle remaining.”
They add the experience has had a “very disturbing effect on the family”, such as for the girl’s 10-year-old brother who found her on the floor.
On the sale to C, they write that she looks young for her age and has a history of mental health issues which have “disturbed her schooling, and exhibits anxiety in unfamiliar and especially public settings”.
They continue, “She is extremely unconfident, unlike some other teenagers. Therefore I, for one, am amazed that anyone could believe she was of an age where it was legal to sell her alcohol.”
Letters are provided from a medical practice and the girl’s psychiatrist reiterating the risks posed and the significance of the incident.
In Mr Love’s report, he details further failures by Best Quality Food and Wines following this case, concluding he believes it is “appropriate and necessary” to revoke the premises licence and that he has “no faith” in Mr Singh to improve.
“He has already had the opportunity to do this, and, despite signing cautions to admit underage sales, and attending the Trading Standards training, and having the knowledge that further transgressions were most likely to lead to a licence review and a prosecution, he is still not following best practice advice.”
The review is to be held online, with decisions typically announced the same evening.
Ben Lynch - Local Democracy Reporter