The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
A Spalding shop has been fined after selling alcohol to two 16-year-olds.
The Winsover Store, in Winsover Road, will have to pay £90 and the licence holder will be invited to a joint agency meeting to discuss issues after they made the illegal sale to two underage volunteers as part of a series of test purchases carried out across Spalding and Boston by Lincolnshire Police Licensing and Trading Standards.
Two other premises were also visited by the 16-year-olds and were refused alcohol after being asked for their age. They were Premier, in Little London, and Londis, Holbeach Road.
Those premises making sales and requesting age will be subject to further test purchasing within a three month period.
If they are caught making a second underage sale there will be an application to review the licence to sell alcohol and consideration of section 169a prosecution for persistent selling to underage. Stores where age was requested will be advised that this is not best practice and that ID alone should be used.
Licensing officer PC Ian Figgitt said: “These test purchase operations are all intelligence led, involving premises where we have received information that the staff are selling age-restricted products to underage people.
“On the receipt of such information, the people running the shops, pubs, bars or clubs are sent letters advising them that this information has been received to enable them to check their staff and ensure they are not selling or to stop them selling.
“They are advised that the premises will be tested and invited to discuss any concerns or issues they may have identified following our initial warning communication.
“Following a sale to our volunteers, the premises operators are informed and invited to an informal meeting to explain our procedures, identify any potential weaknesses in their operation which may need addressing and to warn them of the serious potential consequences if they are found to be selling a second time.
“We make serious efforts to warn, educate and advise suspect premises to deal with this issue of underage sales and the impact it has upon anti social and criminal behaviour in local communities and the harmful effects on the health of young people.”
The town needs new business, if the locals do not wish to run these we must welcome others or face simply closed retail units and that will probably kill off those remaining. In the longer term a large percentage of retail will need to be put to other use, ie residential or community based as shopping patterns change. Advise is the best way of helping the situation not going in heavy handed as that will discourage new retailers.
Winsover Store has not long been opened. Dodgy dodgy place. Hiding behind opaque windows. Should never have been given planning permission. What else is going on there? Too many foreign shops in town already. SHDC to blame.