Chelmsley Wood shop banned from selling knives in landmark West Midlands ruling

A Solihull shop can no longer sell knives after a licensing review by officers in the town. This is the first time a shop had its licence changed in this way in the West Midlands.

In the first successful ruling of its type in the West Midlands, the Premier store in Bosworth Drive, Chelmsley Wood, has had its licence conditions changed banning sale of knives at the store. This move came after a test purchase was carried out by the Trading Standards team in October 2022 when a knife was sold to a juvenile test buyer.

After the operation, the Licencing team supported an application to review the shop’s licence. The licensing panel agreed and the shop is now not allowed to stock knives under ‘the prevention of crime and disorder’ licensing objective.

The shop will also have to have a CCTV installed - which should be operational at all times, and at least one member of staff must be trained to operate it and download images upon request. All staff members have to be trained around checking ages through Challenge 25 and keeping an incident book in which refusals to sell are logged.

What else is banned from sale at the shop in Chelmsley Wood?

The Licencing team’s argued that while knives aren’t illegal to sell, if the applicant had disclosed they wanted to sell knives at the point of application, the team would have objected to the licence. The Licencing team have also disallowed the shop from selling drugs paraphernalia and nitrous oxide canisters (under the prevention of public nuisance licensing objective). The shop was not selling nitrous oxide canisters, but this action was taken as a preventative measure along with the knife selling.

A West Midlands Police Spokesperson said: “It was felt that action needed to be taken to prevent items commonly linked to crime and anti-social behaviour from being readily available. There are obvious risks associated with selling knives, making crime and anti-social behaviour more likely where they are sold. This is the first time a shop has had its licence changed in this way in the West Midlands. No other premises has previously had this type of condition applied to their licence that forbids them from selling knives, cannabis paraphernalia and nitrous oxide canisters.”