
A shopkeeper was stunned after town hall chiefs warned him that a tailor's dummy wearing a British Army uniform was menacing to passers-by.
Hamid Shahabi receive a letter from officials at Bolton Bity Council informing him that he could face an enforcement order and a fine unless unless he removes the life-sized figure dressed in fatigues.
Military surplus dealer Mr Shahabi says he is displaying the camouflage-clad mannquin outside his "Arms and Outdoors" store as a tribute to British soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But staff at branch of Lloyds TSB bank complained that the dummy is causomg "flashbacks" to a day when three masked raiders burst and carried out a robbery last February.
A Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council official wrote to Mr Shahabi insisting the sigure was causing "ill feeling" in light of a number of armed robberies suffered in the area.
Mr Shahabi, 53, sells guns, ammunition along with fishing, hunting and camping equipment at the store in Halliwell Road, Halliwell.
He said: "I could understand it if this figure was dressed to look like an Al-Quaeda terrorist or he in a Nazi uniform you could understand it.
Next page - Click to carry on reading this article
Post a comment