The owners of a convenience store said they made a “mistake” after buying alcohol that had been smuggled into the country as their licence is suspended.

Hundreds of bottles of Smirnoff vodka and The Famous Grouse whisky were seized from East West Food & Wine, in Gravesend, by Kent Trading Standards.

Officers first visited the newsagents, in Wrotham Road, on December 23 after they received reports alcohol was being sold to vulnerable and “heavily intoxicated” street drinkers.

During the inspection, they also saw several bottles of alcohol which had “poor quality labels” and noticed the UK Duty Stamp contained more words than usual.

They returned on January 10 where the same products were being sold and although the alcohol itself was genuine, the labels were found to be counterfeit.

Officers seized 172 bottles of the smuggled alcohol, which were originally intended to be sold in Denmark, making it the biggest amount identified by the team in more than 10 years.

East West Food & Wine’s licence states all alcohol sold must be bought from a bona fide, reputable, VAT-registered wholesale business and a record, such as a receipt, has to be maintained.

It was discovered that one of the shop’s owners, Ponnuchamy Jeyarajaguru, had instead bought the bottles from a friend in London who was selling his stock after having to close down his newsagents.

As the licence conditions had not been abided by, an application was submitted to Gravesham council for the premise licence to be revoked by trading standards officers.

A hearing, held on March 13, heard this was the second time illicit items were discovered at the site following an incident in 2015 where police seized chewing tobacco and non-duty-paid alcohol.

However, the panel was told no other incidents have happened at the store in its 22 years of trading.

Principal trading standards officer, Oliver Jewell, said: “Very simply, this matter could have been avoided by following the very licensed condition previously imposed to prevent such an incident.

“We do not believe that this is just an accidental purchase from somebody offering a good deal out of a white van, necessarily but it is rather a considered, large-scale purchase.

“The smuggled goods are not a so-called ‘Del Boy’ crime but part of organised criminality and the licence holder and the shop owner are complicit in this by failing to adhere to the very specific licence conditions put in place as a result of their previous failings.

“Failure to abide by licensed conditions suggests the licence holder is either unwilling or unable to follow such conditions and as such cannot be relied upon to uphold the objectives of the Licensing Act.”

Representing shop owners Mr Jeyarajaguru and Vijitha Rameshwaran, Gill Sherratt from Licensing Matters said they do not dispute that they breached the licence conditions but said they had no reason to question the products’ origin.

She argued that it would have been very hard for them to know the labels were fake as the products would have been sealed in boxes and would not have been something he was looking for.

Mrs Sherratt added: “These are not people who engage in crime or just do not care about what they are doing, it could not be further from the truth.

“There is no getting away from the breach of condition. They did not buy it from a bona fide wholesaler and they did not have receipts. They are not shying away from that.

“The only thing I can say is small shops like this are operating on a financial knife edge.

“This is not an excuse for the transgressions but when the person offered him the goods, he made the terrible decision to accept but that does not mean that they bought non-duty-paid alcohol knowingly.

“They are not hiding behind the mistake that they have made but they need to keep this licence for their livelihood.

“If the licence is revoked this shop will close, it will not be able to be viable. [Alcohol] is the most important thing about a convenience store so the shop will have no chance of survival at all.”

Instead of revoking the licence, the panel decided to suspend it for one month with immediate effect and imposed a new set of conditions.

These included signing each receipt of all purchases of stock, keeping them for at least two years and sending a record of all purchases to trading standards and licensing every two months.

Mr Jeyarajaguru is also banned from having any involvement in the business except for any financial benefit.

Attempts were made to contact East West Food & Wine for further comment.