Apologies, I’m going to have a rant. Again!On the BBC website there is a ‘news’ item about a man who was prevented from buying a bottle of wine in Asda because his 15 year old daughter was with him and was not of legal drinking age.
Mark Brown said the wine was for him, but this man has gone crying to the beeb and moaned about it, saying he will try to avoid shopping at the supermarket in the future.
I am sorry, but whilst the Asda employee may have been a little cautious in this case, they did everything correct, a fact that has been supported by Asda and the British Retail Consortium. I frequently turn away customers who are with people over 18 because I have no way of telling if the alcohol is for the adult or the child. At this time of year there are many Italian kids in St Andrews at summer school, all wanting to take a bottle of whisky away for their father. I know that the whisky isn’t for them, I know that it is going to be taken out of the country and drunk by someone over 18, but I still refuse to serve them because I know I’d be opening myself up to being fined and losing my licence, and therefore my job.
The Asda employee did everything right, and this man says that the supermarket’s is forcing it’s staff to “make judgement calls and decisions which they are not really trained or experienced to do”, when I’d say that the person in question were fully trained. They knew that if they served them, they opened themselves, and the company, up to being prosecuted.
Mr Brown is just annoyed that he got refused service and decided to whinge about it. I hope that when his daughter tries to buy alcohol before her 18th birthday, which the chances are she will, the person at the shop check out is as equally diligent.
Comments
If parents are hell bent on providing alcohol to their children a shop assistant being rather literal minded won't stop it happening.
Of course, if someone underage attempts to buy the alcohol (apparently not the case here) then the shopkeeper/sales assistant is quite right to refuse the sale.
If this incident was a police spot check on the supermarket, and the checkout operator had served Mark Brown, he would have been fined £2000, the shop manager would have been fined £2000 and the shop could have lost it's licence to sell alcohol. Laws are written down, and I think that following the letter of the law, even if the law is stupid, should not be criticised, as Mr Brown did, irrespective of how extreme the circumstances.