I wont' name our town/city.
Our high street has been taken over by organised crime gangs. When I say taken over, I mean taken over. Legitimate barbers have been run out of business by Turkish and Kurdish barbers.
These businesses are always "cash only" and don't last any longer than 1 year on Companies House.
If a competitor attempts to open a legitimate business they are threatened.
We've had police and trading standards investigating this since 2017, but it got much worse after 2020.
Trading Standards themselves have been attacked by these organised crime gangs.
Police have continously said they're investigating. We've reported to HMRC as well. A lot of us have just had enough now.
There's 8 businesses on our high street which are part of two organised crime gangs. Three of them are those American sweet shops that nobody actually goes into.
We've got 120+ people in a Facebook group who are fed up with these criminal gangs driving out and threatening legitimate business owners.
Is it legal for us (or is there any obstacle to us) protesting these businesses until they close down? We're not going to protest the American sweet shops as there's never any customers. (We have video footage of a 3 day period when no customers arrive except men bringing boxes from the barber shops in and passing them to the men behind the till)
We were planning to focus our protests on the Turkish and Kurdish barber shops who police have told us repeatedly are connected to organised criminal gangs.
Our plan is to use sheer numbers to deter people entering the business and carry signs/protesting outside explaining that these are organised crime gangs - and suggesting passers by use the genuine barber shops instead.
There are also 2 takeaways operated by the Organised Crime Gangs. These takeaways have vandalised, attacked, and harassed other legitimate businesses including Indian and Chinese restaurants. The local Indian and Chinese community have joined the group as well and are keen to protest.
Before we begin any protests, we just want to make sure we have our ducks in a row.
Is it legal for us to do this?
These barber shops/sweet shops are staffed by very violent people. They carry machetes and weapons. A Trading Standards officer got attacked.
However, if we are in large enough numbers we think we can drive them out.