Alcohol sanctions ‘too prescriptive’

8:37am Tuesday 15th July 2008

The Government has recently introduced the Youth Alcohol Action Plan, aimed at decreasing problem drinking in youngsters.

Lucy Winskell, partner and joint head of licensing at Sintons Solicitors in Newcastle, explains the potentially damaging implications for the trade.

THE aim of the plan is three-fold. Firstly, to introduce laws to stop young people drinking in public places; secondly, to provide clear health information and education for parents and young people about the effect of alcohol consumption on young people and thirdly, to introduce new laws to strengthen the standards that currently govern the sale, marketing and promotion of alcohol.

While the proposals to educate parents and youngsters in the harm that excessive alcohol consumption can cause has been welcomed by all, how much this is taken in and acted upon is always going to be dependent on the parent and child.

Unfortunately, we just have to pick up a newspaper or walk down our own high street to know that some parents take no responsibility for their own actions, let alone those of their children so, while worthwhile, education alone will not cure the problem.

Similarly, giving increased powers to the police to disperse under-18s who are drinking and behaving anti-socially from any location can have only limited benefits. By implementing this sanction, are the police not simply moving the problem onto another location where the anti-social behaviour will continue?

And the sanctions for the more serious and persistent cases of public drinking - Acceptable Behaviour Contracts, Parenting Contracts and Asbos - will rely again on the input of parent and child, and have to be balanced with the desire to avoid criminalising children and alienating large numbers of youngsters.

Therefore, it is the third aspect of the plan that will find itself most regularly used to bring under control underage drinking, and predictably it is this area that involves further sanctions and restriction on the licensed trade.

These proposals include the strengthening and making mandatory the previously voluntary Social Responsibility Standards.

This will include expanding the implementation of Challenge 21 nationally.

This scheme requires all those selling alcohol to seek proof of age from anyone who appears to be under 21.

This will put a large burden on operators and will involve increased time being spent with customers, considering and checking ID documents prior to being able to serve them.

But perhaps the most galling of the new measures is the proposal to change the offence of "persistently selling alcohol to a person under-18" from "three strikes" to "two strikes" in three months.

The "three strike" rule was introduced in May last year and is aimed at the premises' licence holder rather than the person selling alcohol to an underage person.

If a premises sells alcohol to an underage person three times in three months, the premises' licence holder is deemed to be guilty of an offence.

There is a very limited defence to this offence - due diligence is not a defence - and the sanctions are a fine of up to £10,000, suspension of alcohol sales for up to three months, or a closure notice effectively closing the premises for a period of 48 hours at the discretion of the police.

Partly as a result of these sanctions, the national testpurchase failure rate has reduced from 50 per cent to 15 per cent in the past two years.

Not satisfied with that excellent improvement, the Government seeks to further fetter the trade by tightening the rule so that two failed test purchases in three months will result in an offence being committed.

Coupled with the proposal to encourage tougher sanctions on those found to be breaching their licensing conditions, we can expect large fines and suspension orders aplenty. In the current climate, such sanctions could kill a business.

While it is important that poor and negligent operators are brought to task and prosecuted, the proposals are seen to be too prescriptive by many. Good operators will be increasingly fettered by having to implement unnecessary controls and will inevitably find themselves falling foul of the new legislation. It seems that the Government is intent on continuing to hound the trade.

And I thought hunting had been outlawed under Mr Blair.