Off-licences pass under-age sale test

Stores selling booze in Maidenhead have passed a test on sales to under-age customers with flying colours.

All nine off-licences and supermarkets put to the test by the Royal Borough's trading standards team challenged the watchdog's undercover teenagers for ID.

The specially-trained youngsters, monitored by trading standards, visited eight sites off-licences and supermarkets in Maidenhead and one in Eton Wick.

Seven of the nine asked for proof of ID and the other two asked the child their age during the joint operation carried out on Friday April 4 by the council’s trading standards and licensing officers and Thames Valley Police. 

Steve Johnson, trading standards manager, said: ”We are absolutely delighted with the results of this latest operation.  
"The 100 per cent success rate among the licensees we visited proves that the message on under-age sales of alcohol is really hitting home to retailers who sell alcohol.

"Of course we will continue to stress the importance of asking for proof of age and refusing to sell to anyone suspected of being under-age who cannot produce this proof."