Who are these criminals that need such drastic and limitless punishment?
Fraudsters, vandals, muggers, burglars, drug dealers and car thieves?
No, he was talking about hard-pressed pub staff, who face concerted attempts by wily, underage teens to buy alcohol at their busy bar. Their offence — if they happen to sell alcohol to an under 18-year-old — is usually a mistake at worst.
A failure in the heat of peak service to scrutinise a fake ID or to notice the youngster round the corner who has a drink bought for them by someone who should know better.
Deterrent
I don’t want to make light of the problem of underage drinking, but I do want to pose the following question: who needs the deterrent — the pub employees, doing their jobs to the best of their ability under pressure; or the youngsters, purposefully and illegally seeking to acquire alcohol by means of deception from those people?
Of course Section 149 of the Licensing Act 2003 makes it clear that an individual under-18 commits an offence if they buy or attempt to buy alcohol — but is that ever enforced? It was interesting to note that Mr Wright’s proposals left maximum fines for children untouched (at £250 for under 14s and £1,000 for under 18s).
I’m reminded of a Government e-petition launched by pub trade consultant Michael Kheng in 2012, seeking to toughen legal action against under-18s who purchase alcohol.
He wrote: “The licensed trade is always targeted and blamed for underage sales of alcohol, yet people under the age of 18 that commit this criminal act are never, or rarely, penalised.
“We believe that if the police took action and/or issued fixed penalty notices to the under-18s who attempt to purchase alcohol, or consume alcohol on licensed premises, then there would be a reduction in the number of under-18s committing these types of offences. While many pubs and clubs invest heavily in preventing underage sales and the police and trading standards invest in testing premises, nothing appears to happening to address the under-18s that commit the crime.”
Punishments
The petition attracted 292 signatures, suggesting that there was no great strength of feeling in the trade about this issue. But perhaps now that the government is ratcheting up its punishments for servers, more people will feel that a balance needs to be struck.
Meanwhile, the Home Office said it wants “100% of pubs and clubs” to accept the PASS proof of age card.
At a relaunch of PASS in London last week, crime prevention minister Norman Baker MP said he was disappointed by the historic reluctance of some venues to accept the card as proof of age.
But can he really be surprised that some pubs want to see passports and driving licences before serving young-looking customers when so much is at stake for them and their staff?