Cracking down on underage sales

07 February 2008

Creating safer communities is one of Derbyshire County Council’s top priorities and as part of this we are stepping up our efforts to reduce underage sales of age-restricted products.

Our trading standards team has been carrying out test purchasing of items including alcohol, knives and cigarettes.

The team uses information from the public and other agencies to target their checks at;

Shops that have previously sold age restricted products to underage people
Shops that have been complained about
A number of shops selected at random.

A team of young volunteers visited a number of licensed premises across the county last year and attempted to buy alcohol.

Out of 188 attempts, 51 underage sales were made, a total of 27.1%.

Places that had previously been found to sell alcohol to underage people had the highest rate of sales with 26 sales being made out of 84 attempts, a total of 31%.

Shops selected at random had a better result with only nine alcohol sales being made out of 44 attempts or 20.5%.

Derbyshire County Councillor for community safety Clive Moesby said: “Alcohol related anti-social behaviour is high on peoples’ list of concerns.

“Our test-purchasing results show that it’s still too easy for young people to buy alcohol.

“Sales to under 18s are illegal and we will be working even more closely with traders and young people to target the issue.

“We will be looking at a variety of measures alongside enforcement; these will include stepping up our focus on problem premises and working more closely with the public.”

You can report an illegal sale by ringing Consumer Direct on 08454 040 506 or Call Derbyshire on 08456 058.

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