I want to talk to you this week about our licensing team here at Brent Borough Police and some of the work that they do in partnership with our colleagues at the London Borough of Brent. Over last week end and the next two week ends our team are coordinating Brent’s contribution to a Met wide operation targeting licensed premises on the Borough.
While most of the licensed premises in this borough are professionally run, there are occasional breaches of licensing laws as well as drink related and fuelled incidents. Our licensing team seek to engage with Landlords and work together to minimise problems. Having said that, when necessary we make full use of the licensing laws to review or revoke licenses when appropriate. Our perception of licensing is dominated by public houses and off licences, but it extends far beyond that and my summary of some of the results that we have achieved on the operation will hopefully give you a flavour of what I am talking about.
Last weekend we made 284 visits to On or Off licence premises: 18 alcohol seizures: 1 voluntary premises closure: 13 test purchase visits with 2 positive results (Under Age sales): 1 vehicle seizure: 24 positive drug swabs at licensed premises: 9 gaming machines seized: large quantities of shisha tobacco, illegal phone chargers and prescription medicine being sold under the counter seized: 2,500 crime prevention leaflets issued by our police cadets. There was also a pre-arranged operation on Wembley Market where our Tokyngton Ward Safer Neighbourhood Team linked up with Trading Standards officers to target the sale of counterfeit goods. Trading Standards had conducted a number of test purchases on stalls the previous week. Based on this intelligence two specific stalls were raided. One was selling branded ladies' hand bags. 250 were seized and two males arrested. If the bags had been genuine they would have had an approximate value of £90,000. The other stall was selling branded Nike and Adidas tracksuits. Again, around 250 bogus tracksuits were seized and one male was arrested. Due to the police presence a number of stalls did not set up for business while other traders abandoned their stock and ran off. All in all, the pro-active element of the operation resulted in 3 warrants being executed, 15 arrests and 105 stop and searches.
I hope this gives you all a feel for the commitment and resource that your local police and Brent Local Authority put into these operations. Ultimately such operations are undertaken to improve the quality of life for the vast majority of the citizens that use these premises or purchase these goods with the expectation that they are legitimate. Although licensing is just a small part of what we do it can have a dramatic impact on our crime figures and the impact on colleagues from other agencies such as our Accident and Emergency units if we do not do our bit around enforcing the legislation and policing these matters effectively. We have and will continue to do so. As ever, if you have any information on crime matters, we will act. You can call us on Crime stoppers (0800 555 111), 101, or your local Safer Neighbourhood Team Teams accessed via the Met Police Website (http://www.met.police.co.uk/). In an emergency, call 999. For daily updates and information about what is happening in Brent, you can follow us on Twitter at @MPSBrent Thank you for your continued support.
Matthew Gardner
While most of the licensed premises in this borough are professionally run, there are occasional breaches of licensing laws as well as drink related and fuelled incidents. Our licensing team seek to engage with Landlords and work together to minimise problems. Having said that, when necessary we make full use of the licensing laws to review or revoke licenses when appropriate. Our perception of licensing is dominated by public houses and off licences, but it extends far beyond that and my summary of some of the results that we have achieved on the operation will hopefully give you a flavour of what I am talking about.
Last weekend we made 284 visits to On or Off licence premises: 18 alcohol seizures: 1 voluntary premises closure: 13 test purchase visits with 2 positive results (Under Age sales): 1 vehicle seizure: 24 positive drug swabs at licensed premises: 9 gaming machines seized: large quantities of shisha tobacco, illegal phone chargers and prescription medicine being sold under the counter seized: 2,500 crime prevention leaflets issued by our police cadets. There was also a pre-arranged operation on Wembley Market where our Tokyngton Ward Safer Neighbourhood Team linked up with Trading Standards officers to target the sale of counterfeit goods. Trading Standards had conducted a number of test purchases on stalls the previous week. Based on this intelligence two specific stalls were raided. One was selling branded ladies' hand bags. 250 were seized and two males arrested. If the bags had been genuine they would have had an approximate value of £90,000. The other stall was selling branded Nike and Adidas tracksuits. Again, around 250 bogus tracksuits were seized and one male was arrested. Due to the police presence a number of stalls did not set up for business while other traders abandoned their stock and ran off. All in all, the pro-active element of the operation resulted in 3 warrants being executed, 15 arrests and 105 stop and searches.
I hope this gives you all a feel for the commitment and resource that your local police and Brent Local Authority put into these operations. Ultimately such operations are undertaken to improve the quality of life for the vast majority of the citizens that use these premises or purchase these goods with the expectation that they are legitimate. Although licensing is just a small part of what we do it can have a dramatic impact on our crime figures and the impact on colleagues from other agencies such as our Accident and Emergency units if we do not do our bit around enforcing the legislation and policing these matters effectively. We have and will continue to do so. As ever, if you have any information on crime matters, we will act. You can call us on Crime stoppers (0800 555 111), 101, or your local Safer Neighbourhood Team Teams accessed via the Met Police Website (http://www.met.police.co.uk/). In an emergency, call 999. For daily updates and information about what is happening in Brent, you can follow us on Twitter at @MPSBrent Thank you for your continued support.
Matthew Gardner
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