The Premier 149A shop on Duke Street in Liverpool city centre, which lost its alcohol licence after staff sold wine and cocktails to teenagers on three separate occasions, has applied to have it restored.
Between July 2025 and March this year, workers at the shop failed to challenge children buying alcohol. On the third occasion, a 17-year-old member of staff said they were “too busy” to check the identification of a 16-year-old girl buying a bottle of wine. She turned out to be a volunteer with Liverpool Council’s alcohol and tobacco unit (ATU), which was carrying out a test purchase.
Licence application and concerns
A new application has been received for a licence to sell alcohol until 5am. Documents released by the city council show Mohammed Ba-Azab is seeking to have the licence reinstated. Mr Ba-Azab is listed as a company director alongside previous designated premises supervisor (DPS) Mohammed Karim Severa Jagdal.
At a hearing in May, committee members were told how Mr Ba-Azab would have been named DPS had the licence been allowed to stand. He told the hearing a 21-year-old member of staff had been supervising their 17-year-old colleague and “we blame a lot of it on him”. He said the teenager “shouldn’t have been on the till at all”.
Jenny Coyle, ATU public protection officer, said the failure had been “absolute”. Concerns have been raised by Ms Coyle regarding any new terms and Mr Ba-Azab’s fitness to hold the licence. According to her written objection ahead of a fresh hearing on October 13, Mr Ba-Azab has previously sought to distance himself from the premises and a business linked to him has also had its licence revoked in the past.
Incidents and test purchase
May’s hearing heard how a first sale was recorded on July 18 last year, when a 17-year-old girl was sold two Buzz Ball cocktails and “not challenged at any time for ID”. In March this year, a 17-year-old boy was stopped by police officers on Back Colquitt Street having been observed leaving the Duke Street premises with a bottle of tonic wine. The boy told officers he had bought it from 149a and wasn’t asked for ID. Warnings were issued to the business that a test purchase would follow.
For both previous incidents, Mr Jagdal was not present. The subsequent test purchase took place on March 27 this year when a 16-year-old girl was able to buy a bottle of red wine, again without a challenge. The committee was told the 17-year-old staff member on duty — who was being observed by a supervisor — was “too busy” to check for identification. It was said staff had two occasions to ask the girl for proof of age but failed to do so.
Management failure and licence revocation
It was said Mr Jagdal did not have sufficient oversight of the day-to-day running of the business, which Cllr Alan Gibbons described as a “gross management failure”. Ms Coyle told the committee the purchases “do not stand in isolation” and it raised concerns as to whether Mr Jagdal took the issue seriously enough. She said the failure to challenge customers for their ID had been “absolute”.
Gill Sherratt, acting on behalf of the business, said the directors accepted the concerns and the gravity of the underage sales and did not seek to dispute them. She said during the July 2025 failure, the girl who bought the cocktails had presented identification earlier in the evening, which later turned out to be false and staff had relied on that. Despite this, the committee felt they had “no confidence” in the management or operation of the business. As a result, they stripped the shop of its right to sell alcohol.
