I’m not being funny but… do you remember when Oxford Street was one of the greatest in the world? That wasn’t even too long ago. Walking down it these days, you’re either blinded by the atrocious candy shops on every corner or being too cautious about getting run over by a tuk-tuk. With Topshop at Oxford Circus no more and the House of Fraser store shutting in 2021, a lot rests on Selfridges and John Lewis to maintain the standard of the iconic shopping district. I’m curious about how so many of those candy shops are even allowed to operate.
Surely it must be some kind of money-laundering business for many of those establishments? I remember that the Standard covered this last year and discovered a number of stores had seen goods seized for being counterfeit, they’d owed taxes and the list goes on. The garish neon light they emit stands out like a sore thumb and the crackdown appears to be going slower than anticipated, with a new one popping up as another one closes.
