Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ok I feel the need for a rant coming on!

I read this story today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/11/morrisons-wine-ban-mother

Basically a middle class woman wasn’t served wine in a supermarket on the basis that she had an underage girl (her daughter) with her and the supermarket had a rule regarding selling laws to adults of where in the company of minors on the basis that they may be buying booze for underage kid’s to quaff.

Now it’s all rather easy to attack the supermarket and indeed the checkout worker for a failure of common sense but I think it’s all rather more complex than that. Recently the law has been changed so that if an adult purchases a bottle of booze for a child then the shopworker (not the shop but the individual shopworker) who sells the adult the booze can be fined up to £5000 (About 6 months salary pre tax for the average shop worker) and be given a criminal record. The majority of shopworkers caught out in this way are caught via sting operations. As far as I’m concerned this is utterly ludicrous and incidents such as the one described in the story are to logical conclusion of such hare brained schemes. I don’t blame the shop worker one bit in this instance, if 6 months wages are at stake then damn right I would be anal. I couldn’t afford not to be!

Now 2 thoughts occur to me. Firstly that if I buy a bottle of booze for a child then it is me who has messed up. I have set out to deceive. It is my fault and my responsibility. I see no reason why blame for my actions should be shifted to a 3rd party who has done nothing wrong. Assuming they are not psychic and have not seen me accepting money from the child, then they should have no reason to suspect any shenanigans on my part. What I do after I purchase the bottle of booze is none of their business and if I then give it to a child these are my actions and I and I alone deserve any repercussions. The only reason I can think of to shift blame away from me to the shopworker who sold me the booze is because the shopworker is easier to identify (and therefore punish) than me.

Secondly many people see this as indicative of a death of common sense. Personally I don’t agree. I think there is plenty of common sense about, it is however being overruled by this sort of petty regulation. I don’t doubt for a minute that the shopworker in question knew damn well that the woman was not purchasing booze for the child to drink. But with the threat of loss of job, a substantial about of money and a record hanging over their head what choice did they have? Intelligence and common sense have to give way to straight edged enforcement of rules to the letter, with dire consequence if you fail to comply, and everybody looses.

It’s one thing to ID the purchaser, and I think the rule of thumb of IDing anyone who looks under 25 is both right and sensible. But to then refuse the sale to someone who has proven their age to be over 18 on the basis that the ‘might’ give it to someone under 18 is insane! Any shopworker can tell the difference between a group of teenagers, one of whom is over 18, buying booze for them all to get smashed in the park and a family buying wine as part of their weekly shop, so why rely on this sort of draconian nonsense?

The cynic in me says the reason for this is because it’s far easier to fine a minimum wage earning shopworker then to actually detect and deal with people who buy alcohol for minors. The issue hasn’t actually been solved but the box has been ticked, and the authorities have been seen to have acted. Who cares if the person on the receiving end of the punishment was actually responsible or not?

This can be a tricky area, the law in the UK states than anyone (regardless of age), trying to purchase alcohol, should be asked to provide ID to prove they are in fact over 18, as dumb as this may sound it is to ensure that no one can claim discrimination, many of these "task 21" schemes are merely a way for the big retailers to gain brownie points with the licencing magistrates.

The idea of fining the person who sells the alcohol was mainly brought in to tackle the corner shops and local pubs who used to all but ignore the over 18's only rule, there was a rise in the the amount of underagers getting booze because the small shops were desperate to make sales against the supermarkets who were squeezing them out of business, by fining the seller as well as the company it makes a person think twice.

Selling booze to someone when you know they are going to pass this on to a minor is also illegal, this is why the person on the till probably refused the sale, she may well have had genuine concern that the mother was going to give the wine to the girls. Or she may have just watched a trainiing video that mentioned £6000 fines and was being extra vigilant. When a business is repeatedly caught selling booze to underage customers the ultimate penalty is a withdrawal of their alcohol licence. What would happen if the local Morrisons stoped selling booze? People would shop elsewhere. This is why supermarkets are so overzealous with ID, they have a hell of a lot to loose.

There is also the PR aspect of this case, would it have made national news had this taken place at a corner shop, probably not, and yet if they were have to sold the wine to the woman and she had then passed it onto the girls who then got drunk and were raped the supermarket again would be dragged through the media as the bad guy.

Many people also seem to assume that as shop is obliged to sell there goods to you, they aren't, just as they are not required to give you a reason for not serving you. These laws are put in place for a good reason and sometimes when trying to adhere to them people can get a bit carried away, but telling a court that you were trying to use common sence is simply not a defence, it is better to inconveinience a customer then it is to be landed with a huge fine and loose your job.

It is totally legal for UK parents to serve alcohol to their children aged over 5 years old.

Kilkrazy wrote:It is totally legal for UK parents to serve alcohol to their children aged over 5 years old.

Only in the home and in reasonable amounts

Yes, and that's legal.

Where I live they don't have to give you a reason to fire you.

Also, squilverine, you didn't spell "their" correctly, you said "there".
Grammar nazi away!!!!

I am not sure if the law has changed since I ran a pub but it used to be legal for those over 5 to be bought beers and ciders with a meal, and for over 14's to order what they wanted, but only if with an adult and eating a meal in an area seperate from the main bar, I always used to have this image of a bunch of blitzed 6 year olds eating steak and downing pints of Stella!

Apologies for the poor spelling and improper use of "there" when it should have been "their"!

They always ask me if I'm over 25.
so i say I'm closer to 27 than 25.

Even though they can see, I'm over fifty lol

This is just one sign of a steady drifting away of responsibility from those who should be held responsible to those who are easy to punish. I believe that it started in the 1980's, when the PMRC tried to blame heavy metal bands for the demented actions of a few teenagers. To parahrase their most insipid catch phrase, "It takes a village to raise an idiot."

UK alcohol and child laws as depicted by Direct.gov.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Yourchildshealthandsafety/YourChildsHealth/DG_10026210

If you don't like people telling you what to do then quit voting for people who will tell you what to do and quit frequenting places where they will tell you what to do.

Vote for the L word. Libertarians, we won't tell you what to do.

We have these laws in the US.

I don't know why 18-20 year-olds don't take a few weekends to hassle the hell out of supermarkets for the same strict legal reasons.

Of course, as these laws were passed after I turned 21, I don't really care.

Similar policy at the liquor store I used to work at. If I was not busy and could actually pay attention to what vehicles people got out of when they entered the store (and honestly, I would to have been damn near comatose from boredom to have that kind of time to devote to car watching) I could ask anyone buying booze to gather up the ID's from people in the vehicle in which the buyer got out of or just ask the buyer to call his "friends" in to the store to show me ID.

I mean, if it was obvious that the person in the car with the one buying the booze was a preteen or toddler I had no qualms, but on the other hand I COULD refuse to sell if I suspected the passengers were underage and thinking the man/woman buying were going to allow them to drink.

Again, I didn't do it often. Normally if it was a car full of high school or young college kids I'd request ID from all present.

Sometimes people forget that the man selling the booze has the final say in who gets to buy. Sign on our door said "We have the right to refuse to sell to anyone." If I didn't like your attitude or how you talked to me....NO BOOZE. If I didn't like your persona....NO BOOZE.

At times I sort of felt like God.