{"id":630692,"date":"2026-06-10T07:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T07:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/630692\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T07:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T07:12:09","slug":"illegal-mini-marts-to-shut-for-up-to-12-months-under-law-change-prompted-by-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/630692\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal mini-marts to shut for up to 12 months under law change prompted by BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Illegal mini-marts, barbers and vape shops could be shut for up to a year under new powers announced by the government, following lengthy investigative reporting by BBC News into organised crime on British high streets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">We have exposed drug gangs, child sexual exploitation, money laundering and immigration crime linked to shops selling illegal cigarettes, vapes and drugs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As the law stands in England and Wales, authorities can only close a shop for three months, with an option to extend closure to six months using anti-social behaviour legislation. The government&#8217;s planned change will double the potential closure time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Making the announcement, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood praised the BBC&#8217;s reporting, saying that people felt high streets were being taken over by &#8220;organised crime [and] immigration criminality&#8221;. The government was &#8220;not prepared to tolerate it&#8221;, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This type of criminality &#8220;makes people lose faith, not just in their local area but in democracy, in what our country is, and we can&#8217;t let that happen&#8221;, she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illegal mini-marts, barbers and vape shops could be shut for up to a year under new powers announced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-630692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}