The number of candy and souvenir stores on Oxford Street has once again climbed to record levels, as operators have evaded crackdowns from city officials.
There are now 29 such “US-style” candy stores, a Local Data Company analysis revealed, equal to the previous high-water mark hit in 2020.
These stores are notorious for selling counterfeit goods, and their numbers had initially been reduced to 21 stores by a series of raids from Westminster council trading standard officers and police.
Officials discovered 14,000 suspect items from just two shops on Oxford Street during a raid in November, and an October raid seized £215,000 worth of fake goods, including counterfeit Rolex watches, Apple products and 8,000 vapes with illegal amounts of nicotine, according to reports.
These stores have cost taxpayers at least £8 million in unpaid business rates, said Westminster Council leader Adam Hug. They began appearing on Oxford Street in 2017, replacing legacy brands such as Next and The Body Shop.
“We are dealing here with a sophisticated operation which is skilled at exploiting UK legal loopholes,” Hug said. “There is a glaring lack of governance around setting up companies in the UK with only cursory checks on who the directors are - there are more checks involved if you want to get a local authority library lending card.”
Hug also called for enforcement from higher levels of government.
“We need the new Economic Crime Bill to help clamp down on these loopholes and to provide Government agencies such as Companies House and HMRC with the powers and funding they need,” Hug said. “As a council we are doing all we can, but we need increased cross-government support to make life sour for the sweet shop racketeers.”
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
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