A petrol station shop lost its alcohol licence after it “ignored numerous warnings” from police and council officers about consistent breaches.

Woodchurch Filling Station, in Church Lane, was subject to a Brent Council review after persistently selling Dragon Stout – a high strength Jamaican beer – despite it being against its licence conditions.

There were also concerns about a lack of ‘lockable grills’ on the fridges outside the hours it could sell alcohol, as well as a lack of incident logbook and the type of safe installed.

Metropolitan Police licensing officer Michael Sullivan criticised the attitude of the licence holder, Sithamparanathan Kirubendran, suggesting that he was determined to carry on as normal.

“He’s just ignored the warnings and made no attempt to take on our recommendations,” he said.

“There’s an attitude of ‘I’m not going to do it’ and he’ll look into getting these conditions removed instead.”

He added that Mr Kirubendran had shown “complete contempt for the police, the council and the sub-committee” and based on this, and the evidence of breaches, recommended revocation.

This was supported by Brent Council’s licensing team, which pointed out that officers have a job to do but ultimately want to help the borough’s businesses.

“We aren’t going in there to go against them, we just want to make sure they uphold the licensing objectives,” an officer said.

“It’s as if a wall has been put up. We just want to get it right so he can run his business and we can move onto the next premises.”

Shankar Sivashankar, the agent representing the garage, argued his client had not breached any of the conditions, save for the type of safe which he said compromised his insurance agreement.

He pointed to confusion around the fact it can sell some high strength beers, such as Nigerian Guinness, and argued that putting up a chiller screen over the shop’s alcohol constituted a clear barrier.

And he claimed there is no link between anti-social behaviour or street drinking and the shop and that there have been no complaints from neighbouring properties about its operations.

Despite this appeal, the council’s licensing committee noted Mr Kirubendran’s “refusal to cooperate or meet the conditions” and expressed the need for “tough action”.