Tesco guilty of under age alcohol sales

Tesco Express in Kirkway, Alkrington, Middleton has been caught selling alcohol to minors on three separate occasions.

Strict rules have now been imposed to restrict the sale of alcohol at the store.

Tesco was called before the council’s Licensing Committee but agreed before the hearing took place to abide by stringent and unprecedented conditions rather than risk their licence being revoked.

All sales of alcohol to be made through a single checkout point for a period of six months – known as a ‘designated alcohol sales zone’ on Fridays - 3pm – 10pm, Saturdays – 12 noon – 8pm. At other all other times two checkout points can be designated as an ‘alcohol sales zone’

This checkout to be manned by suitably experienced staff who will receive refresher training every three months in respect of the law relating to the underage sales of alcohol. Suitably experienced staff has been defined as someone:

• Employed by Tesco for a minimum of two years with checkout experience
• Over 21 years of age
• Received underage sales training in accordance with Tesco’s policies and procedures
• The Designated Premise Supervisor (DPS) to keep written records of this training. Staff to sign and date records to confirm that the training has been received and understood
• To produce a copy of the training records for inspection if requested by an authorised officer of Rochdale Borough Council

The council carries out routine test purchase exercises using underage volunteers. Three illegal sales were made out of the four attempted test purchase exercises which took place, the following dates are when the illegal sales took place; 21 November 2007, 28 October 2008 and 2 October 2009. On all these occasions the retailer sold alcohol to the underage volunteer without asking for proof of identification.

The council’s Licensing Committee previously sought to suspend the retailer’s licence but Tesco successfully appealed the ruling. Now that the store has failed a third time the Licensing Committee decided that strict conditions were the only way to end the illegal and irresponsible trading taking place on the premise.

Andy Glover, Public Protection Manager at Rochdale Borough Council, said: “Retailers have an obligation, to prevent the sale of alcohol to underage drinkers. Our motto is ‘no ID means no sale’ - so by abiding by these rules, retailers are accepting their social responsibilities to protect the health and safety of children and young people, as well as helping to reduce anti-social behaviour in the community which is often associated with underage alcohol.

“This clearly hasn’t been happening in this particular premise and it can’t continue. The new licensing conditions should make the retailer realise that there are consequences to breaking the law and should help limit young people’s access to alcohol.”