To report an off licence?

[HotChocWine]

Long story short, off licence sold vodka to a 17 year old, that my 15 year old drank and we ended up in a and e as he was unresponsive

We have been told where it was bought, I was debating letting Trading Standards know about it

On the bright side, he/she may never drink spirits again because of the horror of it! I'm like this with cider after an experience at 15.

The smell of Pernod still makes me dry heave #1980's!

I don’t think that’s true. As I understand it, there may be a licence condition attached, but there may well not be. The Challenge 25 policy is otherwise voluntary.

So is the 17-year-old not your child?

How confident are you in the account you have been given?

There is a good chance that your child is trying to defect the blame or not wanting their friend to get into trouble.

I would focus on preempting predictable behaviours in a teenager. There is no point being reactive about a 15 year old getting drunk.

OK. Sounds a bit slack of the shop, unless the 17yo had fake id of course.

Still wouldn’t report it though. I hate the idea of a business losing its licence because of teenagers trying it on.

Report to trading standards OP. It may form part of a bigger picture for the premises - locally here the trading standards team do spot checks on reported premises with underage kids attempting to buy.

I'm sure this is a big wake up call to your DS and a lesson learned. He's not the first and unfortunately won't be the last.

Took DD until she was 19 to be able to drink vodka again after an unfortunate encounter aged 15! It did her no harm, she’s a far more responsible drinker than most of her friends

Report them.

No matter whether 15 or l7, they are both still underage and should have been asked for ID.
Even if the child didn't know better, the adult (off licence worker) should have.

What is the appropriate punishment?

Yes i would absolutely report to trading standards

If you report it they might do some test shops where they send someone underage in to try and buy booze

No. I’d tell your child not to ask other people to buy him alcohol!

I’m quite confused about this as well, was it your 17yo?

This.

The fact that the other individual involved is 17 isn't that relevant. Your son still knowingly consumed the alcohol. It would have been no less potent just because the other kid passed their 18th birthday. Re the shop - unless you've seen the CCTV footage of the transaction you don't know if he did present a (fake) ID showing that he was, say, 19. So report it if it makes you feel better, but it's your son's poor behaviour you should be reflecting upon.

Who said they were siblings? OP didn’t

Why was your Ds drinking vodka bought by a 17 year old .

Considering the outcome I doubt you are getting a full picture .

It would be an unfortunate outcome if the shop got a visit from a TSO, showed them the CCTV and it turned out to be OP’s child who’s blagging vodka using fake id.

A challenge policy is a mandatory condition - if it's not met then no licence. It doesn't necessarily have to be challenge 25, it can be 18, 21, 25, 30.... That bit is up to the licencee, but, challenge 25 (and less so 21 recently) is seen as best practice by licencing teams, and they can impose conditions on an active licence if something goes wrong -like insisting challenge 25 is used as the policy.

Shop has broken the law and so has the 17 year old, possibly the 15 year old too (woolly on that one though). Neither presumably forced your 15 year old to drink it though.

And this is why people are very careful about proxy sales - because people will always look for someone else to take the blame when it's their child who comes to harm.

Re age, I agree. That’s what I was saying. But not very clearly, I realise.

The pp had said that challenge 25 was the law.

As for breaking the law, yes, technically, but it’s not a breach I would be pursuing on the basis of an account given by a shamefaced 15 yr old.

Not the law I agree, but you don't get the licence to sell without meeting the mandatory condition, though can be any age to 'challenge' and you have to be able to show you're using it (I've had to show trading standards a beer encrusted ID 'log' raked out from under the till before tills prompted and recorded 🤣) or you won't get renewed.
And you can be fined for breaking the conditions with a sale etc, so I think that's where people get confused as there's concequences and fines etc, and you're not going to be employee of the month if you cause the shop to have restrictions on the licence.

It's not something I'd be pursuing either, but I was pointing out that both the 17 year old and 15 year old have also broken the law here, as well as the shop but it would seem it's only the shop at fault to OP.

Yes report them, they are not meeting their licence conditions. So many other places have really strict conditions (eg I couldn’t buy alcohol if shopping in supermarket with my teen) so not even challenging a 17 year old is just wrong.

Off Licence: Bloody annoying but what were the circumstances? (False ID? Sloppy staff?)

17 year old: Stiff talking to, illegal to buy, irresponsible to give to 15 year old.

15 year old: Mucho sympathetico and regale with tales of drunken youth...

(eg I couldn’t buy alcohol if shopping in supermarket with my teen)

Are you sure? That doesn’t right. I’ve never had that.