Oxford Street candy store operators have defied a council crackdown with the number of the “eyesores” returning to record levels in recent weeks, figures reveal today.
There are currently 29 US-style candy and souvenir outlets on Europe’s busiest shopping street, equal to the previous peak in 2020, according to analysts Local Data Company.
They had been reduced to 21 after Westminster council trading standard officers and police launched a series of raids. In one swoop in November police found 14,000 suspect items from just two shops on Oxford Street, and in another raid in October £215,000 worth of fake goods were seized including counterfeit Rolex watches, Apple products and 8,000 vapes with an illegal amount of nicotine.
In a further raid £22,000 worth of fake Wonka chocolate bars were suspected to be own-brand chocolate from supermarkets that had been repackaged — resulting in a 43p chocolate bar being sold for upwards of £8.
Council leader Adam Hug has claimed the stores have cost taxpayers at least £8 million in unpaid business rates and has described them as “an eyesore” on Oxford Street.
They began springing up in 2017 and the numbers grew during the pandemic, when they rented empty premises previously occupied by branches of chains such as Next and The Body Shop.
Retail Week found the council was increasingly playing “whack-a-mole” with the traders - when 12 stores were closed down in November, nine had been replaced by similar shops by February.
Cllr Adam Hug, leader of Westminster City Council said: “The research confirms our own recent assessment that candy and souvenir shops are shifting location and reappearing on Oxford Street. Westminster city council has energetically pursued unscrupulous traders who sell unsafe or fake goods and fail to pay business rates, but we have always maintained this is a whack-a-mole activity.
“We are dealing here with a sophisticated operation which is skilled at exploiting UK legal loopholes. 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.
“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. 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.”
