A test purchasing operation carried out at off-licences in Bitterne Park and surrounding areas has ended up with four cashiers being issued with fixed penalty notices.
Pic: nickwinch
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Two youths aged under 18, under the watchful eye of plain clothes police officers, were sent into a selection of licensed shops to see if they could buy alcohol on Saturday, December 8.
They went into seven shops in all. Three of them, Co-op in Midanbury Broadway on Witts Hill, The Co-op in West End Road and Premier Parade in Forest Hills Drive passed the test by refusing to sell the youths the drinks.
However the pair managed to successfully buy an alcoholic drink from four stores.
Police say the stores which failed the test were Laly’s Costcutter in Thornhill Park Road, The Co-op in Hinkler Road, Alpine News in Vanguard Road, and London Off-licence on St Catherine’s Road in Bitterne Park.
The four individual shop assistants who sold the alcohol have now been issued with £80 fixed penalty notices.
PC Lou Carter who led the operation said: “It was disappointing that more shops failed than passed in our test purchase operation. All off-licences should be checking ages of people if they are not obviously over 18 and asking for proof. We recommend they actually extend this to anyone who looks under 25
“We will be speaking with the owners of the shops who failed and making recommendations to them about such things as staff training to make sure the don’t fail again. Shops that continually do fail are likely to have their licence taken away.
“We would however like to congratulate the three shops and their staff who did pass the test.
“We will be running similar operation in the future to make sure stores abide by the law which is there to help protect young people from the potential dangers of alcohol.”