You can't always believe what you read in a newspaper - even if it is the Shropshire Star. But, as the tweet above shows, this is a true story:
Ms Phillips, 68, stepped in to help her 32-year-old daughter Alana who was asked for ID by a member of staff at the checkout at the Morrisons store on Barons Cross Road.
But the West End dance choreographer, who lives in the area, was told she could not be sold the booze as it was her daughter who had tried initially tried to buy it.This sort of nonsense came in under New Labour. Partly in a spirit of Somebody Think of the Children and partly because they wanted to soften us up to accept compulsory identity cards, Tony Blair's governments got us used to a world where someone who looked as though they might be aged under 18 or 21 or 25 could be challenged to prove his age if he tried to buy alcohol.
I also wonder if the central role the supermarkets were given in public health campaigns encouraged them to have ideas above their station.
But the more interesting question is why the current government has done nothing about such laws. My suspicion is that most Tory MPs are far more concerned with looking tough than they are with individual liberty.
Which is why you get even the best of them putting forward nonsense like this:
"The government's basic failure to enforce the law sends totally the wrong message about under-age drinking and puts the public at risk from the spiralling violence it generates."That is from a press release issued by David Davis in February 2008 when he was still shadow home secretary.
I'm all for drugs, including alcohol, being legal but I think their should usually be age restrictions. There have been some silly examples but given that some under-18s can look a lot older and some over-18s a lot younger, it seems quite reasonable and inevitable. It's not quite in the same illiberal ball park as drug prohibition.
ReplyDelete"But the more interesting question is why the current government has done nothing about such laws."
ReplyDeleteThey are not laws, of course. To ask for the government to create laws against non-laws...
But there are laws against selling alcohol to those under 18. Which is why supermarkets behave as they do.
ReplyDeleteThe problem appears to have been cause by a Statutory Instrument supplementing the Licensing Act 2003.
The Licensing Act 2003 is modified by Home Office guidance documents. The one for pubs and clubs is called "Selling Alcohol Responsibly: The New Mandatory Licensing Conditions" issued circa April 2010.
ReplyDeleteThis is what it says about age verification:
"Under the new condition, the premises licence holder or club premises certificate holder must make sure that the premises has an age verification policy in place for the sale or supply of alcohol.
This policy must make sure that customers who appear to staff to be under 18 years of age (or any older age specified in your own policy or in schemes such as Challenge 21 and 25) are asked to show ID..."
Which seems pretty clear to me. Challenge 21 and Challenge 25 are optional schemes, and all that is required of a licence holder is to have a reasonable age verification policy. Challenge 21 etc are not compulsory and are intended to be administered with common sense. No laws need to be changed because Challenge 21 etc and the guidance document are not laws. If administered in the fashion intended by the guidance document's authors, age verification should not be heavy handed.
I found my copy of the guidance document via:
http://www.northdevon.gov.uk/index/lgcl_business/lgcl_business_and_street_trading_licences/nonlgcl_licensing_act_2003.htm
The Manifesto Club's report 28¾: How Age Checks are Infantilising Adults says of the equivalent legislation covering supermarkets:
ReplyDelete"While confirming that the minimum legal age to buy alcohol is 18, this legislation requires retailers to check the age of anyone appearing under the age stated in their own policy, ie, 21 or 25. This effectively turns supermarkets’ already cautious policies into law. The safe thing to do now will be to request ID of anyone who could conceivably be under 25, not just to be super safe, but for fear of breaching a legally mandated policy
by failing to ID a 24-year-old, and perhaps even incurring a fine for what would be a completely legal transaction but for the company’s own policy. Moreover, in specifying photographic ID with a holographic mark, the legislation removes yet another opportunity for discretion, and threatens to institutionalise the bizarre practice of young people taking their passports to the shops."
That Manifesto Club report makes sensible points. The most pertinent are that age verification policies are not implemented in the way that they were intended.
ReplyDeleteThese scenarios are akin to Health and Safety where considered guidance is applied without sense or sensitivity.
I think you are right about the parallel with Health and Safety.
ReplyDeleteI think we have managed that rare thing: an enlightening discussion on a blog.
I was in America last month, and everybody who came into the hotel bar got carded if they were visitors, but none of the guests were. The bartender explained that they are legally required to card everyone, but this can be waived for guests as you can't book a hotel room under the age of 18 (although the drinking age in America is 21...), and where the Yanks go, the British will always follow...
ReplyDelete