Islington Cracks Down on the IIlegal Sales of Alcohol and Cigarettes to Underage Kids

 

The sale of alcohol and cigarettes to underage people is declining in Islington, according to man in charge in the borough.

Dough Love, 52, Trading Standards Officer for Islington said: “The issue of local shops selling alcohol and cigarettes to underage kids is declining but not as quickly as I’d like. My team have been tackling this issue by holding face to face training for local shop owners, underage test purchasing and overage test purchasing to see if they will be asked for ID. In the last 4 years, 30 or so licenses have been revoked in the borough.”

Section 146 of the Licensing Act 2003 states that it is an offence if a person sells alcohol to an individual aged under the age of 18.

With the decline in sales of alcohol and cigarettes to underage kids in Islington, the borough’s trading standard team have aggressively cracked down on this issue.

According to alcoholconcern.org, in 2012, 43 per cent of school pupils aged 11-15 said that they had drunk alcohol at least once.

Kamran Khan, 34, owner of S.T. Food and Wine store on Highbury Corner said: “In my shop we look and test people if we think they look under 25 rather that 18, this way makes it easier to get it right. We also have a refusal book where we keep a record of all the occasions when we have refused to serve customers alcohol because they did not provide appropriate identification.”

Traders who have not been taking this issue seriously have been prosecuted in the past and the punishment for the offence of selling alcohol to children is up to £5,000. They also run the risk of having their alcohol trading license revoked.