The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) has once again called on the Government to take urgent action to tackle rogue traders, after a BBC investigation found West Midlands minimarts were supplying cocaine and cannabis.
ACS chief executive Ed Woodall said: “Rogue businesses are popping up across the UK, selling a broad range of stolen, illicit and dangerous products that cause enormous damage to communities and the responsible retailers operating around them. This is not a fair fight for responsible convenience stores, who have a long list of procedures in place to ensure that they both follow and enforce the law. Rogue traders don’t have any of that, and yet still carry on without fear of reproach from the enforcement community which is drastically under-resourced to deal with the problem.”
In March, ACS along with the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, the National Business Crime Centre and Labour MPs Melanie Onn, Sadik Al-Hassan and Julie Minns, wrote to consumer protection Minister Kate Dearden calling for Government action.
ACS also published a report in 2024, warning that Trading Standards would need an additional £140m and hundreds of enforcement officers to deal with the growing problem of the illicit trade.
