News

The Herald - 15/11/2011

Retailers caught in underage alcohol stings are more likely to receive serious sanctions after a sheriff failed to overturn a decision by Scotland’s largest local authority.

Cut-price supermarket Lidl appealed to the courts after being hit with a five-day suspension earlier this year when an underage teenager was served alcohol at one of the chain’s stores in Glasgow.

The 16-year-old was served a bottle of Zinfandel rose wine at the operator’s Victoria Road store by the duty manager without being asked for identification.

Although the duty manager was sacked after an internal investigation and the store passed a second test-purchase, the city’s licensing board issued a ban on the sale of alcohol for five days, leading to the appeal.

The supermarket claimed it had done all it reasonably could to prevent such an occurrence, which it said was not down to training or systems but an individual error.

But Sheriff James Mitchell’s decision against Lidl yesterday has fuelled concerns within the trade that licensing boards will become emboldened when handing out punishments.

One trade source said: “Boards across the country will see this as the legal line in the sand they’ve been looking for when it comes to test-purchases. With as many different approaches to test-purchase failures as there are licensing boards the hope in the trade would have for a precedent for first failures.

“Instead the sheriff seems to have said that regardless of how good your systems are you can still be suspended as a ‘deterrent’.”

In his judgment, Sheriff Mitchell said there was “no fail-safe check” when the duty manager was selling alcohol to the public and although the member of staff’s dismissal meant he would not be repeating the error the sheriff had “to have regard to the fact that he was a highly trained and senior member of staff”.

Sheriff Mitchell added: “They [the licensing board] decided a five-day period of suspension was both necessary and appropriate in order to prevent a recurrence of the commission of an offence in an area where the public and the police had concerns about increased under aged drinking. In my judgment, against the background of what was undoubtedly a serious matter, the approach of the defenders was proportionate.”

Lidl’s legal representative, Andrew Hunter, of Harper Macleod, said: “We’re obviously disappointed that the appeal against the board’s decision was not successful and can confirm that an appeal has been marked to the Court of Session.”

The council said it could not comment.