To leave my £80 of shopping for the checkout assistant to put away

[mummytopebs]

Was in supermarket doing my shopping got to the till, had £80 worth of shopping in this was 4 cans of john smiths for dh. The drink was at the end of the shopping so everything had gone through, the checkout lady asked for id (I am 29 but do look young but not that young and god its 4 cans of beer with a full shop not some chavvy drink) I said i did not have any on me but i used to work in the said supermarket so said can you call my old manager who will verify my age. She tutted at me and called the line manager who i used to work for, she said yes she is definitly over age it was 6 years when i worked there and i was definitly over 18 then. The jobsworth sorry checkout lady still looked at me distastefully and the manager said it is up to the checkout lady though cos she originally akked for the id. I said can i have it then and she looked at me and went nah !!!!!!!! I said are you joking and hse said no i dont think you are over age!!!!!! So i said well i'll leave it then and she said ok and put the beer down and said thats £80.71p and i said no i will leave the lot - grabbed my dd and flounced out of the shop with an air of triumph.

I dont care if i had been shopping for an hour, i used to work in that supermarket and know she will have to put it all away ha ha ha

um no the stores are perfectly sure. i have answered every question on here, repeatedly.

i can't help you not liking it

ruddynorah so it depends on the cashier then, and if she assumes alcohol is for a minor, when the same family buys the same thing week after week with no problem, how can that be policy?

the policy is, as i've said, that if you suspect someone is buying alcohol for a minor you refuse the sale. if you are in any doubt, you refuse the sale.

the red and black posters are at the bottom of this page

Oh dear i'll have to stop buying Shandy for DD2

Oh, and the only clear thing is...the law is an ass.

The point is the alcohol was not for a child

Yes GodzillasBumcheek the law is an ass

Sorry but yes you are being unreasonable if you are 29 then in most cases people dont look it. The legal alcohol age is still 18 but checkout assitants have been trained to "think 25". If they think you look under 25 then they have to ask you for ID.

It is very unusual that the checkout assistant would call your own manager to vertify your age :S usually they do not go via word of mouth. It is also up to the checkout person whether they want to sell you the alcohol or not when you dont have ID & if they've asked you for it & you cant provide it then you usually get declined. I think you are being unreasonable because if it was only 4 cans then its not the end of the world you could of gone to another shop on the way home.

And i work in a supermarket as a checkout person & we dont have to put away the shopping there was no spiting her you just spited yourself really....doing all that shopping and walking away empty handed

Last note.... If anyone sells alcohol to a person underage then they get a £5000 fine and their store manager gets a £20,00 fine aswell. Plus the person who sold it goes to court

so the rule is if you dont have any ID then you dont get served

Also how strange for a checkout lady to be so unprofessional in front of her manager & say "nah"

Nahui - I don't have to stamp my little feeties as thankfully I don't live in the UK and don't have to deal with this. I live in a country where one is treated as a mature adult as regards alcohol, and so my dear, my grocery money goes into Belgian pockets, and not UK ones. I will go to the local cash and carry when I'm back in UK in August and buy wine there and not have to provide ID, so this doesn't affect me. I was curious about the law if I have to return to UK to live next year.

Portofino - I don't know where you got 12,000k from for BSB fees; my ds's were the best part of 25,000 this academic year and I can't see them staying at that level either. As to the BSB kids who get drunk - yes some other nationalities do, but the ones I see and hear about the most are the British kids. I don't see pissed Belgian teens when walking through Tervuren on a Friday night and it seems quite rare to see pissheads out on the streets here, unlike being in Plymouth on a Friday or Saturday night for instance. It's a cultural thing that won't be extinguished by cracking down on underage drink sales. I don't know about the European school...perhaps I was right to keep ds at BSB and not move him to the European school.

As to teaching your children to drink responsibly leads them to binge drink - bollocks. I was allowed a glass of sherry on a Sunday from when I was 11, and wine with meals on a Sunday from about 13. I have never binged and drink tea for the most part. I am far more worried about the availability of pot locally than I am about the possibility of ds getting pissed. When he decides to drink, I will buy him the poison of his choice and let him drink here, so if he does to decide to overindulge, he's in a safe place.

The obvious answer of course to underage drinking is to severely restrict any access to money, and then they can't buy alcohol.

However, the basic premise remains that one is legally allowed to drink at 18 in the UK and purchase alcohol. There is no legal requirement to carry ID, so some of us don't do so. If the stores wish to operate an IDing policy, then they need to make their rules clear, consistent and explain them to the public, so they understand that it is possible if you are 70 to be asked for ID to buy alcohol. They also need to clarify their policies as to when they will not let a mum doing the shopping buy alcohol when they have their kids with them, because this is still unclear. To avoid all the nausea with this, shop online and buy your booze from Laithwaites or use the local cash and carry, or an off-licence. Alternatively, do as Portofino and I have done and move abroad.

Quite apart from the fact that we do frequently let opur ds (8) have small glass of wine to tast (he tastes it but doesn't finish it), I now know that I do buy alcohol with intent to supply ds: the vanilla essence that we go through at a rate of knots!

Yet another reason to shop online !

We order wine and beer in bulk once every couple of months from Majestic - free delivery and a lovely man brings it into the kitchen and checks it's all right.

im sorry scaryteacher but i dont believe this to be the case, yes, some might be fine with parents teaching them to be alcohol aware, but some people who have had this are still going to go and try to buy alcohol. Peer pressure comes into it a lot. I remember being a teenager and what it entails.

Can't believe this thread is still going on - let it go ladies - let it go......

I had a customer at the weekend who bought a pack of teaspoons and the till came up with the OVER 18?? prompt!

Bexie- they could have gouged someone with those teaspoons. Or used them to put -gasp!- sugar in their tea. You can't be too careful in our brave new world...

lol - you can't be too careful!

I'm waiting for a reply from my MP.

Ruddynorah - those posters you linked to. One of them says "under 25?", and the other says

It is a criminal offence to buy alcohol on behalf of a child.

None of them actually says

"If you are an adult and you are buying alcohol, please be aware that we reserve the right to ask you for ID if we think you are under 25, even if you are actually well over 25.If you have a teenager with you or if we think you are purchasing the alcohol for an uynderage child who may or may not be in the shop with you.

"If you are an adult and you are buying alcohol, please be aware that we reserve the right to ask you for ID if we think you are under 25.

I know tescos has posters that say pretty much that on them down the alcohol lane, as well as the red and black ones.

I can remember being a teenager last century Trikken, and I was brought up to treat alcohol sensibly. Of course I tried to buy a pint on the odd occasion before I was 18; but we all do that. I did not go out and binge drink.

Being alcohol aware and trying to buy alcohol at under 18 does NOT equate to a binge drinker; anymore than my multiple purchases of paracetamol and lemsips when in UK means that I'm going to top myself.

It's a shame that a few teenagers and irresponsible parents have spoiled it for the vast majority who are sensible about alcohol; and the attitude that all teenagers must be binge drinkers if they buy booze. You could open an off licence with what I have in my cellar; but I have 1 beer maybe every 10 days, and ds (13) is aware that alcohol is there but shows no interest in it at all - he'd rather drink squash or Fanta.

Read it again, cos u obviously missed my point.

saltire- it says be prepared to show proof of age when buying alcohol.

why don't you write to your local licensing authority with your concerns? as well as your MP.

Yes it says "under 25? be prepared to show proof of age when buying alcohol".

it doesn't actually say "we might ask you for iD even if you are over 25, and thats where the confusion arises.

i don't think it's confusing. i'm 29. i know i could be thought to be under 25, depending what i'm wearing, how i have my hair done etc..so i can expect a cashier to think i may be under 25 and ask me for id.

i think you mean it's frustrating. which i can understand, for you as a customer to be unsure if you'll be asked for id. an older assistant may well think everyone looks very much younger than they are, while a younger one may view people as older. having 25 as a bench mark gives more chance of catching under 18s, and less reliance on the subjective nature of 'common sense.' hence 'be prepared to show proof of age when buying alcohol.' simple as that.

it doesn't frustrate me because i've done my personal licence holder training and have my little licence card, so i know the background and how important it is. i drum this stuff into my staff day in day out.

they all know that if they are in any doubt at all whatsoever, to refuse the sale.

I've worked selling age restricted items in the past and my reasons for refusing people who don't look old enough and can't provide id are purely selfish. I don't want a £2000 fine and a criminal record. It was my risk so the decision to sell or not had to be mine.
I am crap at judging people's ages ...my record was a mum of three aged 32 who I requested id from. She duly showed me her driving licence. She was very flattered and I was very embarrassed!
In my experience those who can't provide ID or kick up a fuss are, in most cases, not old enough. Admittedly this was before retailers started using think 25. I was trained to think 21 so I can understand people in their 20s being caught out by this.
I have dcs age 18 and 20 and they always carry id and expect to be asked for it. They don't see it as a problem.
I would kiss the person who asked me for id and then recommend they got their eyes tested!

I think you missed mine as well Trikken that making your children alcohol aware is more likely to stop them binge drinking. Those that do imo (and from experience as a teacher) are those whose parents don't give a shit anyway; those who have had alcohol presented to them as 'the demon drink' (often the case in Cornwall with Methodism); and those who have it so drummed into them that drinking is verboten that they want to try it for the hell of it.

As to the peer pressure point, at some stage, however difficult, they have to be taught, and to learn to ignore this. We use peer pressure as an excuse far too much these days. Are they going to spend their entire existences worrying about what other people think? I hope not, or we have bred a generation of wimps, who will always use peer pressure as their get out clause. My ds finds me scarier than peer pressure and I intend to keep it that way.

Scary - at the school fees. I remember looking when we first moved, decided it was too much....

I totally agree with you POV re. responsible drinking. And glad we don't have to suffer the nanny state that will only let you buy 2 packs of paracetomol at a time. Like you I buy a trolley load of consumer healthcare items when in the UK and have been questioned on several occasions.

I'm still interested as to why the Expat British kids seem to follow their UK peers when it comes to drinking rather than their Belgian ones....The influences must be different surely...?

To me the Govt would be better investing time and money in initiatives to get the kids off the street and give them something positive to do, so that binge drinking and hanging round street corners isn't the highlight of a teen's social life.

That seems to be the difference here in Belgium - life is much more family orientated, and there is loads laid on for children/teenagers.