POLICE in Derby are set to strip booze from the shelves of a store after its owner failed to appear at court for a licensing hearing.
Intars Cervinskis was due to appear at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court yesterday to appeal against a decision to revoke his alcohol licence.
The police licensing team and city council representatives waited for him but he never showed up and his appeal was thrown out.
Magistrates have ordered Mr Cervinskis to pay more than £1,000 court costs in 14 days.
But after being told the news at his Allenton shop by the Derby Telegraph, Mr Cervinskis said he believed the hearing was supposed to take place later this month.
He said: "This is the first that I knew about the court hearing. I was told it was supposed to take place on June 26, not June 5.
"No one has told me anything. No one has written to me, no one has sent me an e-mail telling me about June 5, no one has called me. If I had known I was supposed to be in court on June 5 then I would have been in court.
"I am speaking with my solicitors about what to do next."
His store, Inchstoresuk Amanda, in Osmaston Road, has been open since August last year and has a licence to sell alcohol between 8am and 11pm, Sunday to Thursday, and 9am to 11pm, Friday and Saturday.
But the council revoked his licence in February. At that hearing police said they had visited his shop in December last year. In a statement, Chief Superintendent Jack Atwal said an officer found Mr Cervinskis in his store so drunk he could not stand up.
Mr Cervinskis said he had not been drinking and his behaviour was due to medication taken for pain in his knee.
At his store yesterday, he reiterated that he was not drunk during that police visit.
Councillor Paul Pegg, head of the licensing committee, said: "When anyone applies for a licence to sell alcohol, be it in a large premises or a corner shop within the City of Derby, they agree to the conditions that are applied at the time of their licence application.
"Rest assured that any licence-holder who is found through the due process to be incapable of managing or running any form of licensed premises will inevitably have their licences revoked to ensure that the people of Derby are kept safe."
It is understood that the police are due to visit Mr Cervinskis this week to remove the alcohol from the shelves of the shop.
