Sales of alcohol to children
We are committed to working in partnership with the Police and licensing authorities to tackle the sale of alcohol to children under 18 years of age.It is a criminal offence to sell alcohol to a person under 18 and it is also illegal for a person under 18 to buy alcohol.
As well as protecting young people from the dangers of excessive drinking, licensing laws also seek to protect local communities from antisocial behaviour caused by young people who ignore the law and drink too much.
We realise that it is a small minority of young people who get drunk and cause trouble in this way. The majority of young people don't hang around street corners drinking and are just as concerned about antisocial behaviour as adults are.
The focus of the work of trading standards has been to educate people who sell alcohol on what the law requires and then tackle those who ignore the law by taking strong action where appropriate.
You can help us to do this by reporting any incidents which affect your local community. This information will allow us to identify which areas are suffering the most and target our resources accordingly.
If you wish to report someone a trader who is selling/has sold alcohol to a child under the age of 18 please complete our online form (opens in a new window). We will follow this information up and if appropriate, we can arrange for our young volunteers to visit the shop in question and attempt to buy alcohol.
See the link below for more information on the role of the trading standards service under the Licensing Act 2003.
Related documents
The following document is in Portable Document Format (PDF). You can download the PDF software for free from the Adobe website (opens in a new window)