POLICE are launching a major crackdown on new shops wanting to sell booze as shoplifting surges in the cost of living crisis.

The Metropolitan Police Service told licensing chiefs yesterday, Thursday, they will now be requiring new premises in a zone of the West End to employ security guards and ensure all alcohol is locked away.

An officer told a city council committee they had had enough after 260 theft offences from retail premises were recorded last month. There had been a 400 per cent increase in shoplifting, a report to the committee said.

City councillors were discussing an application for a new Marks and Spencer food store in Shaftesbury Avenue, Soho, that had objected to the stringent measures imposed by the police.

One of the measures included a total ban on bottled alcohol being sold on the day of the annual Pride celebrations, and a four-pack limit imposed on tins.

M&S had criticised the police for asking for “too much”, and warned the committee was being “blinded by science” by police that were “cherry-picking statistics” and suggesting that the MPS’s “evidence should be considered with a critical eye”.

PC Dave Morgan said: “We can all agree shop-lifting is going through the roof. It is one of those crimes that is massively under-reported.

“We believe that without these conditions the venue could be targeted by criminals, the homeless, the people who need the alcohol.”

He said the MPS would be asking for the same condition from any new shop selling alcohol in the West End.

Speaking about the Pride alcohol ban, he added: “We will be asking for this as a specific provision. We have massive problems on that day. People drinking alcohol in the streets. It’s to prevent people buying a crate of beer and reselling it, or sitting in the street.”

M&S had argued against the conditions of locking-up booze and employing security guards, which they said could put a huge dent in overall profits of the store.

The meeting heard that the store hoped to make between £200,000 and £250,000 profit a year and the security teams the police wanted to be in place could cost in the region of £160,000.

The supermarket’s representative at the committee said: “I feel in this instance the police are trying to blind the committee with science with these statistics.

“It’s not data we can examine, but data that comes from the police database. I ask you to consider the police evidence with a critical eye.”

He added: “The most commonly stolen item is meat. The main thing retail stores want to see is police following through on theft prosecution.”

The number of thefts from people in the West End has also rocketed this year with figures trebling in two years, along with muggings up 26 per cent.

Business­es have called for a greater police presence, as has Nickie Aiken, the MP for Cities of London and Westminster.

Westminster City Coun-cil’s deputy cabinet member, fairer working, Cllr Robert Eagleton (inset) told yesterday’s meeting: “We see it in the news that shoplifting has become a massive issue. Since the cost of living crisis and pandemic, it has risen exponentially.”

A decision is due to be made next week.