Mama Food Store and its director must pay almost £9,500 after Barnet Trading Standards seized 887 packets of illegal cigarettes, some from a safe cut open.

A Golders Green shop and its director have been ordered to pay almost £9,500 after Barnet Trading Standards found 17,740 illegal cigarettes on sale there, some of them locked in a safe that officers had to cut open with an angle grinder.

Barnet Council prosecuted Mama Food Store and its owner, Kataryzna Jablonska, after a series of inspections between 2023 and 2025. Officers seized 887 packets of cigarettes in total, which the council says were worth £14,626.63 on the black market. The council announced the outcome on Friday 6 November.

The safe and the seizures

On one of the visits, the council says, Jablonska refused to hand over the key to a safe on the premises. Officers cut through it with an angle grinder and found illegal cigarettes inside.

The products did not meet UK legal requirements for packaging and health warnings, according to the council, and were being sold despite earlier enforcement action and warnings from Trading Standards. The packs in the council’s photograph of the safe carry Polish-language health warnings rather than the UK ones.

What the court heard

Jablonska appeared at Willesden Magistrates Court on Thursday 15 October. The court heard that the offending went on over a long period, with tobacco deliberately hidden inside the shop and in a vehicle linked to the operator.

After a guilty plea, the company and its director were both ordered to pay fines, costs and surcharges, which the council puts at almost £9,500 in total. The court also ordered that all the seized tobacco be destroyed.

The council’s release does not break the total down between the company and Jablonska, or between fines, costs and surcharges.

What the council said

Cllr Barry Rawlings, Leader of Barnet Council and Cabinet Member for Strategic Partnerships, Economy and Effective Council, said:

“Illegal tobacco undermines public health measures, creates unfair competition for legitimate retailers and exposes consumers to products that do not meet legal standards. This case reflects our ongoing efforts to tackle the sale of illicit tobacco and take action against businesses that continue to break the law.”

It is the second Barnet Trading Standards prosecution we have reported in under three weeks, after a Hendon shop was ordered to pay £10,144 for selling a knife to two 15-year-old police cadets.

How to report a shop

The council asks anyone who suspects a Barnet business of selling illicit goods to report it through the Trading Standards page on the council’s website.