The Turkish restaurant in Bromley town centre hired people with no right to work from Turkey, India, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
A Turkish restaurant in Bromley might lose its premises licence after four illegal workers were found there over the past three years.
The venue in the town centre has also failed to pay £90,000 in civil penalties and was found to be paying some of these workers less than the minimum wage. The Home Office has applied to Bromley Council to review the premises licence of Smoque at 2-4 Ringers Road with the hope that the licence is revoked.
The council’s Licensing Sub-Committee will conduct the licence review on Wednesday (June 24).
Immigration officers first visited Smoque in May 2023 where they found a man hiding in the toilet along with a “large sum of cash” on his person that was valued at under £1,000.
The Turkish national had illegally entered the UK concealed in a lorry in December 2000 and had been working at Smoque for one year despite never having held the right to work in the country. He left the UK in June 2023.
Officers also encountered a woman in the kitchen who began to walk out upon noticing them. The Kazakhstani woman said that she had been working at Smoque for a few days and stated that no right-to-work checks were conducted before she commenced employment.
Home Office checks showed that she had entered the country on a visit visa which was valid from July 2022 until January 2023 and so it was confirmed that she was an overstayer who never held the right to work. She departed the UK in October 2023.
Immigration officers returned to Smoque in September 2025, where they found another illegal worker who was working eleven hours a day, six days a week. It was found that the Uzbekistani man had entered the UK through a temporary work visa that was valid from May 2024 until November 2024.
All three of these workers were being paid below the minimum wage. The woman that identified in the May 2023 visit was earning just £6.67 an hour, while the man was earning below the minimum wage of £10.42 an hour whenever he worked longer hours in any given week.
The illegal worker discovered on the September 2025 visit to Smoque was earning £7.58 an hour. The Home Office reported: “These wages fall substantially below the applicable National Minimum Wage and constitute clear labour exploitation, providing the premises with an unfair competitive advantage over compliant businesses.”
Immigration officers most recently visited the Bromley restaurant in April this year. On their April 10 visit, they found a man who had been working behind the bar for two to three weeks. The Indian man had entered the UK on a student visa which was valid until January 2024.
He was granted leave to remain as a graduate, though his leave expired in January 2026. Since then, he had made no attempt to regularise his stay and had no outstanding applications and thus, he held no right to work in the UK.
The Home Office issued a £30,000 penalty to Mezze Dining 2 Ltd (the company that owns Smoque) following the May 2023 visit. This has not been paid and has been referred to a third-party debt collection agency.
A £60,000 penalty was issued on February 26 this year, which is also still yet to be paid. A Civil Penalty Referral Notice has been issued in relation to the April enforcement visit, but the case is ongoing.
Home Office documents state: “The repeated identification of illegal workers at the premises demonstrates a continuing pattern of non‑compliance with immigration and employment law over a period of three years.
“Whether by negligence or wilful blindness illegal workers were engaged in activity on the premises, yet it is a simple process for an employer to ascertain what documents they should check before a person can work.”
Bromley Council’s Licensing Sub-Committee will decide whether to revoke Smoque’s premises licence tomorrow. If the licence is revoked, the Turkish restaurant will no longer be able to serve alcohol, play recorded music or serve food past 11pm.
Got a story? email [email protected]
Don’t miss out on the biggest local stories. Sign up to our MySouthLondon newsletter HERE for all the latest daily news and more.
