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Teen faces discipline for 'black market' snack shop

Tommie Rose said his snack-selling enterprise is meant to help him pay for a business degree.

By Ben Hooper
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SALFORD, England, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- A British teenager is being threatened with suspension after he made nearly $22,000 from running a "black market" snack shop.

Tommie Rose, 15, said he made his money buying snacks including chips, soda drinks and candy at bulk discount stores and selling them to his classmates at Buile Hill High School in Salford, England.

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Rose, who said his booming business allowed him to hire two helpers at $8.61 per day, said he was inspired by business-themed TV shows Dragon's Den and The Apprentice to start selling sweets three years ago as a means of raising money to attend Oxford or Cambridge University for a business degree.

The teenager's parents, Gary, 33, and Tracy, 33, said Tommie's approximate $100-per-day profits would go a long way toward helping the family afford the more than $14,000-per-year tuition at the prestigious schools.

"At first we thought we should stop him selling the sweets, but then we saw that he was doing it properly, legally and sensibly so we left it to see what would happen," Gary Rose told the Manchester Evening News. "I could only dream of making that sort of money at his age."

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The Rose family said Tommie was suspended for 10 days at his former school for running his business and he is now being threatened with the same action at Buile Hill.

James Inman, head teacher at the school, said the teenager's business violates school policies.

"We admire this pupil's entrepreneurship but school is not the place to set-up a black market of fizzy drinks, sweets and chocolates," Inman said. "We have extremely high standards and with our healthy eating policy we don't allow isotonic drinks, fizzy drinks and large amounts of sweets for the good of our children.

"Our high standards are set out to pupils and their parents at the start of the school year," he said.

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