7 Days Upminster shut until 1 December over illegal tobacco

A convenience store on Corbets Tey Road, Upminster, has been ordered shut until 4pm on Tuesday 1 December after Havering Council and the Metropolitan Police seized £10,000 worth of illegal tobacco from it. (Havering Council statement, 3 September 2026)

The council names the premises as the 7 Days Convenience Store. It says an unannounced morning raid took place on Wednesday 26 August, after weeks of investigation, and involved its own trading standards and enforcement officers, the Metropolitan Police and sniffer dogs.

What officers took away, according to the council, was cigarettes, shisha and hand rolling tobacco with a combined value of £10,000. The council and police then went to Barkingside Magistrates Court on Wednesday 2 September and were granted a three-month closure order.

Councillor Terry Brown, Havering’s Cabinet Member for Planning and Public Protection, said in the statement: “The stash of products seized are not only illegal but posed a huge health risk to our residents and they have now been taken off our streets.”

Inspector Charlie Routley of Havering Safer Neighbourhoods Police said the case came from residents: “The information provided by residents was instrumental in achieving this outcome, and I would encourage anyone with concerns to continue reporting them to us directly or anonymously via Crimestoppers.”

The second Havering shop closed this way in five weeks

This is not an isolated case. Five weeks earlier the same teams closed a shop in Romford on the same grounds, and the two orders now run in parallel:

• RM Mini Market, Fairview Parade, Mawney Road, Romford. Raided 28 July, closure order granted 29 July, shut until and including 28 October. Seizure valued at more than £8,000. (council statement, 31 July 2026)
• 7 Days Convenience Store, Corbets Tey Road, Upminster. Raided 26 August, closure order granted 2 September, shut until 4pm on 1 December. Seizure valued at £10,000.

Both were secured at Barkingside Magistrates Court, and both fall under Operation CeCe, the national illegal tobacco programme that Inspector Routley named in his statement. We reported the Romford closure at the time: RM Mini Market Romford shut 3 months over illegal tobacco.

What a closure order does, and what it does not do

A closure order is a civil order against a building, not a criminal conviction of any person, and neither council statement names an operator or a defendant.

A magistrates’ court can make one if it is satisfied that an order is needed to stop the problem recurring, and that at least one of these applies to the premises:

• someone has engaged in disorderly, offensive or criminal behaviour there
• the way the premises are used has caused serious nuisance to the public
• there has been disorder nearby, linked to the use of the premises

The maximum length is three months. Both Havering premises got the full three. (Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, section 80)

The hygiene register tells a different story

The Food Standards Agency register lists a 7 Day Convenience Store at 95 Corbets Tey Road, Upminster RM14 2AH with the top food hygiene rating of 5, from an inspection on 26 February 2026. (FSA register entry)

The council’s statement gives no street number and spells the name “7 Days”, so treat the match as a strong one rather than a certainty. The wider point stands either way: illegal tobacco is a trading standards and excise matter, and a clean hygiene score says nothing about it. That is the opposite of the Romford case, where the shop had been rated 1 two weeks before its raid.

A hygiene rating reflects conditions on the day of inspection, and any business can appeal it, ask for a re-visit after making improvements, or publish a right of reply on the register.

What it means for you

The Upminster premises cannot lawfully trade until 4pm on Tuesday 1 December. The Romford premises cannot trade until 29 October at the earliest.

Illegal tobacco is sold outside the duty, packaging and fire-safety rules that legal products must meet, which is the health risk the council’s statement refers to. If you want to report a shop, there are two routes:

• Trading Standards, through the Citizens Advice consumer service, which passes reports on confidentially.
• The police directly, or anonymously through Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, which is the route Inspector Routley pointed residents to.

You can check any Havering food business on the Food Standards Agency register. For more from across the borough, see our Romford news section.