Better training for checkout clerks could benefit pub industry

As with all such surveys, I find myself slapping my forehead in despair and uttering the words “well, duh…!” at my screen. Isn’t that the point of pre-loading? Twenty-somethings searching for a good night out buy the booze from a supermarket first because it’s cheap​ and they can therefore get a good ‘buzz’ going before​ they head to a pub and carry on.

Ergo, they drink more than if they just went to the pub for the evening.

There is nothing shocking about this survey other than the fact that it was conducted in Switzerland, a country notoriously more worried about whether you’ve hung your washing out to dry on a Sunday afternoon or whether you’ve left your engine running at a red traffic light than it is about banning smoking; their public smoking legislation allows bars to have dedicated rooms for smokers…

Even worse, the survey was conducted across just 183 individuals. It’s hardly representative, then, of so-called Binge Drink Britain.

None of this, of course, has stopped the Daily Mail coming out with scaremongering headlines. If you believe this newspaper then anybody aged twenty-five and under spends their entire day in a drug-and-booze-fuelled orgy because they drink supermarket booze before going to the pub.

On Saturday night, I provided a bar for a local function and had one of my barmaids work with me. At twenty-one, she falls right in to the target market of such allegations and yet, when I spoke with her, she said that she would be much happier going to a pub for a drink and a chat with her mates than she ever would be heading out to a loud club and getting wasted.

And her generation is far more aware of the dangers of unprotected sex than mine was at that age. The reality is that, according to Dr Florian Labhart’s survey, ‘nearly​ one in ten’ participants ended up having unprotected sex after a night out – I was expecting it to be dramatically higher than that, and I’d be willing to bet it was worse than that in the years before pre-loading became a trendy habit.

Dr Shannon Kenney, co-author of the study, suggested drinkers pace themselves and don’t play drinking games. The Mandatory Code on Alcohol Sales has been in place for nearly three years now and one of the first things it set about doing was banning drinking games in public places and drink-lead promotions. So, there’s nothing ground-breaking about this survey, then; not here in the UK, at least.

In fact, the only thing I’ve been able to find that I agree with is the recommendation that a reduction in late-night alcohol sales for the off-trade and better training for checkout clerks who serve alcohol would benefit the industry.

After all, what’s the point in making publicans jump through hoops in order to get the various qualifications and licenses they need in order to sell alcohol if everybody can just pop to Tesco and have an untrained (in alcohol) clerk swipe a 10-pack of Stella for just £9?

Surely, somebody, somewhere – and this is the important bit – at the point-of-sale should be responsible for alcohol when it’s purchased?