AIBU to think this Supermarket is judging my parenting?

[Doingmybestmum]

AIBU? Standing in a queue in Tesco with (home from uni) DD chatting to me. I was clutching a much anticipated bottle of Pimms, with accompanying lemonade, strawberries, mint etc... goodies going through when charmless checkoutee asks for age of said 21 year old DD and ID for her or she would not be able to sell me the Pimms. I calmly explained that I (substantially over 21) am buying said alcoholic beverage with my money and a) DD is only standing next to me b) its my money c) DD is over 21 and d) what on earth... the manager was called and I was allowed to purchase. AIBU to think that this is ridiculous - I understand that adults must not buy alcohol for underage children, but if you were - would it be Pimms, and would you have the "child" standing next to you?

Similar happened to me a few years back. I was in the Co op with my mum and she tried to buy some fags and they refused because I was with her (I was about 24/25 at the time!) I even showed them my driving licence and the assistant said it looked fake so still refused (it was most definitely NOT)

I've also been refused alcohol free beer from Tesco because I had no ID o me at the time. Bloody absurd.

Well I'm 42 and tesco utterly refused to sell me two packets of ibuprofens with the weekly shop
Apparently I can buy one with the weekly shop and then buy the other in a seperate transaction 2 mins later !!!
Thanks to this thread I'll know to send my teenager outside before I buy alcohol in the future - never ever taken any form of Id to tesco

My 30 year old sister got ID'd for buying 'children's non toxic glue' in Dunelm. She had no ID except a credit card and her car keys. Called my 60 yr old mum who came down with her birth certificate which matched said credit card info and they still refused to serve either DS or DM! I know there are rules but some people have no common sense and just dig their heels in!

I got ID'd for a pack of coke!!! The cashier got really angry when I refused. That was, until she realised what it was. Apparently thought it was a pack of bud.

Also want to add that at 27 I got IDd for nail glue. What did they think I was going to do with it?!

i have seen myself in both my local asda and tesco at 8am with a full grocery shop including a weeks worth of wine and my 9 year old daughter in tow and no one batted an eye lid

forgot to mention - it's also illegal to sell energy drinks to under 16s - and so when I worked in a shop we had to ID every single kid that came in to buy a red bull. hillarious as you can imagine during rush hour. :(

If u were a secret shopper the check out person would get a fine of thousands if he/she didn't check. The person isn't to know your daughter is old enough ( they have to look over 25 or get IDed now) and she wasn't to know it was your daughter and the pimms was for you.
How would you feel if you got fined a lot more than your monthly wage while doing your job ?

I even showed them my driving licence and the assistant said it looked fake

Possession and use of a fake identity document to purchase a alcohol is a proper, grown-up, serious criminal offence, not the sort of fixed penalty stuff supermarket cashiers live in fear of. Identity Documents Act, 2010, S.4. It is accurately summarised in the government's own guidance on the use of false ID to purchase alcohol:

A person commits an offence if he or she has in their possession an identity document which is false, and which they know or believe to be false, with the intention of using it to establish personal information about him or her or to induce another to ascertain personal information about him or her. A person guilty of this offence is liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or a fine (or both).

So if the Co-Op are now experts in false documents, why aren't they calling the police to deal with serious criminality on their premises? Had you fancied a bit of fun, you might have suggested to the Co-Op manager that they call the police to resolve matters: after all, either your ID is genuine and they should sell you the beer, or your ID is false and it is their public duty to report your dangerous criminality.

So what we learn from this is that the Co-Op are relaxed about serious crime, in that when they suspect it they don't do anything about it.

If u were a secret shopper the check out person would get a fine of thousands if he/she didn't check.

No they wouldn't. (a) it's an 80 pound fixed penalty fine for a first offence and (b) the offence wouldn't possibly be made out on the facts outlined.

They seem to have the opposite problem in our local Co-Op. Called in there earlier for some cheese and was surprised to see the place swamped with teens who didn't look 15 never mind 25 queueing up to pay for their beers, fags, crisps and, oddly, chocolate croissants . No ID checks made that I could see. It was like entering a parallel universe.

This evening, the Sainsbury's I use on the way home from work didn't bother getting ID from a bunch of first years ahead of me in the queue, buying the materiel for a party. They might have ID'd the lead purchaser, they certainly didn't ID the rest.

I haven't read all 15p of the thread. Where I work there is a strict policy we have to ID anyone who looks under 25. I follow this at all times.

Trading standards regularly check stores, doing test set ups like the one described in the OP. If I don't ask for ID then I risk getting a £5000 fine & the shop loses it's alcohol licence.

I don't have £5k sat in the bank & I don't want to lose my job.

Therefore I will continue to piss customers off by following the law on alcohol sales.

Bolograph - do you work in a job selling alcohol or cigarettes? You are very much mistaken thinking it is an £80 fine for the cashier - I wish! If your employer has told you this they are wrong.

While the law is "knowingly" , the cashier has to follow the stores policy. Even if its erroneous. So its not that shes judging you shes just doing as shes been told to do by her employer.
My son and partner are often challenged when buying alcohol, both are over 21, but if one if them doesn't have id they have to split up to get served. Stupid, but not the cashiers fault.

But surely a "defence" for the cashier would be that they appeared to be over 21 (or 25) to her. It's pretty subjective, which is why the policy doesn't follow the law.

Me and DH were putting through a general food shop at an asda a little while back. The shopping contained 4!! Guinness for DH and I was fairly heavily pregnant. The cashier looked at me and asked for ID, er not on me. Anyway he's paying and I have nothing on me but I'm 28! Cue DH getting a little stroppy/confused at it all and telling her to not worry about them when she went to chang her mind! Random. I was mildly flattered lol.

Although before all the challenge 25 I could get served at 13.......

You are very much mistaken thinking it is an £80 fine

There is an £80 fixed penalty notice option. It's not the same as prosecution and a fine, but it's extremely unlikely that an individual shop worker (or anyone, for that matter) would receive anything like the maximum available fine: you'd have to have been force-feeding a youth club.

And there's nothing wrong with asking people if they meet the age requirements. Asking people who just happen to be with them as in the OP's case, not so reasonable.

If I don't ask for ID then I risk getting a £5000 fine

In the same sense that you risk being struck by lightning. Your employer is wildly exaggerating. There is an £80 fixed penalty option: unless you have been deliberately supplying bottles of scotch to a queue of twelve year olds while wearing a tee-shirt saying "Get drunk now, ask me how" a criminal prosecution would be implausible, and no court would accept it.

If you have a case of a shop-worker being fined £5000 on the basis of a trading standards test purchase, feel free to provide a citation.

You are very much mistaken thinking it is an £80 fine for the cashier

Here's a complete history of one council's enforcement actions over the past five years.

cms.walsall.gov.uk/index/age_restricted_products_-_enforcement_actions.htm

You'll note the fines are to owners and license holders, not cashiers, and in those cases none of them are remotely close to £5000 anyway. At the bottom:

Between June 2012 and December 2012 in joint exercises conducted by Trading Standards and the Police, four members of staff at four public houses were issued with a fixed penalty ticket of £80 for selling alcohol to a person under 18 years of age.

During joint exercises carried out between June 2011 and March 2012 the Police issued five fixed penalty tickets for the sale of alcohol to a person under 18 years of age.

Here's another council's guidance:

So I stand by the assertion that it is an £80 fixed penalty notice (although some references imply it might be being raised to £90). Not £5000. That's not to trivialise the impact on people of such fines, but attempting to convince people that a dragon stalks the land handing out five grand fines to unsuspecting shop workers is just a story told to frighten the ill-informed.

Here's another council's guidance:

www.hackney.gov.uk/media/4396/guide-to-preventing-the-illegal-sale-of-age-restricted-products/pdf/age-restricted-products

forgot to mention - it's also illegal to sell energy drinks to under 16s - and so when I worked in a shop we had to ID every single kid that came in to buy a red bull. hillarious as you can imagine during rush hour

Unless something has changed in the last couple of months and the FSA know nothing about it, no it's not.

Pmsl I've bought bottles of wine and baileys at supermarkets with my two year old daughter in tow not once have they asked for her ID or asking if I'm buying it for her 😳

it's also illegal to sell energy drinks to under 16s

Bollocks. Name the legislation. Name, in particular, the definition of "energy drink" such that it includes Red Bull and doesn't include, say, a triple-shot vanilla latte.

www.thegrocer.co.uk/buying-and-supplying/health/morrisons-ends-trial-ban-of-energy-drinks-sales-to-under-16s/513606.article

Why do people think that shops and cashiers with a total ignorance of the law are making shit up for giggles? Because they spout nonsense like this.

Here's the FSA position:

www.food.gov.uk/science/additives/energydrinks

There is a voluntary agreement to not market such drinks to under sixteens. Market does not mean sell, and in any event the agreement has no statutory force.

A question to all those who are staunchly defending the supermarket: do you actually think it's a GOOD rule/policy? I mean, does acting as if anyone accompanied by someone who might conceivably be under 25 is about to supply alcohol to an under-18 actually achieve anything in the great war against alcohol abuse? Really?

No. Of course not. The ONLY effect of this rule (I hesitate to call it a law, because it seems to me that bolograph knows a lot more about the actual law than most people on here) is to annoy people and possibly force them to shop elsewhere.

The fact that there is so much confusion, and people are routinely purchasing alcohol accompanied by teens and not being challenged suggests one of two things: either, it's NOT a real law, but just some sort of trumped up supermarket policy; or it's not being policed properly and, if and when it does become properly enforced, there will be no confusion. In that scenario, the questionable teen will know never to accompany the purchaser to the checkout and will stay well out of the way. Net result: no challenge at checkout, alcohol delivered smoothly to underage drinker.

This is a rule without sense. It is just an attempt to tick a box.

Finally, to those who keep reiterating that the cashier might lose their job. I'd be very sorry if that happened, but, with the greatest respect - why is that my problem? Bolograph has pointed out how the law actually works. If an individual supermarket decides to implement a sledgehammer-type policy that punishes employees with the sack unless they behave in a frankly unreasonable manner at the checkout, then I'd file that issue in the column entitled 'The Supermarket's Problem' and well away from the column entitled 'My Problem'. If the supermarket loses business due to this heavy-handed policy, I would file that under 'Poetic Justice.'