by Cherry Wilson, Jo Charlton and Lucy Buckland

newsdesk@essnmedia.co.uk

Staff from wine stores across Croydon will be out of a job before Christmas after a major off-licence company went into administration.

Workers from three shops across the borough will be left unemployed after administrators for First Quench, the company behind Threshers, announced 373 store closures nationwide last Thursday.

Staff working at Threshers, in Upper Norwood, Local, in New Addington, and Thresher Wine Shop, in Coulsdon, will lose their jobs when their shops close by December 2.

A total of 16 people will be affected by the closures – with only two members of staff being offered jobs in stores that are still trading.

The stores have been ordered to start selling off their stock at knocked-down prices after being told that they have been picked out as being loss-making.

Tom Darville, 25, a sales assistant at Thresher Wine Shop, in Chipstead Valley Road, Coulsdon, said the news had come as a shock.

"It has been a nightmare," he said. "We have had no communication, no letters, nothing.

"Because I have worked here less than a year I don't even know if I will get any redundancy.

"I just didn't see it coming, recently we have been quite busy. It is frightening. I have a family to buy Christmas presents for like everybody else and bills to pay."

But staff at Threshers, in Westow Hill, Upper Norwood, and Local, in Central Parade, New Addington, were less surprised by the announcement.

They said they had been having trouble ordering stock for big promotions.

One staff member worker, who asked not to be named, said: "We knew the company was in trouble.

"In a way we were expecting it. We are going to sell as much stuff as possible and still have a good laugh with the customers

"Customers have come in and they are angry that it is happening. The staff aren't happy either."