Olivers explained

12:10pm Sunday 16th November 2008

THE former owner of a troubled convenience store in Winsford has moved to dissociate himself following the discovery of drugs there.

Neil Burke and his wife bought the Nip-In in old High Street in February and renamed it Olivers in the hope of making a fresh start.

But the store struggled for trade and in August the couple took the heartbreaking decision to cut their losses and sell the shop back to former owner Ramzan Rahman Sharif.

They did not get round to removing Mr Burke’s name from the licence, meaning that when anti-social behaviour linked to the shop resurfaced, his name was still tied to it.

He said: “I let the licence run in my name but as soon as I realised the shop was not a good place to be I surrendered it.

“For the six months we were there there wasn’t a bit of trouble but it wasn’t a viable business. We had a few regular customers but the majority didn’t use us.”

A quantity of cannabis was seized when officers raided the store last week.