Shop Assistants: Our New Conscience

Are you tired from work today? Are you putting your feet up and having a drink?

Before you take another sip, let me ask you: who gave you permission to have that drink?

If you are saying it is none of my business, you are right. However, if I was a shop assistant in the UK, it could easily have been my business.

Of course you are an adult and you can decide when, where and how much you want to drink. And chances are that you are a generation older than the average shop assistant.

How would you feel if you go to your local friendly supermarket to buy your favourite tipple, and the shop assistant refuses to serve you? Would you go back to that shop?

Before you answer: what if the shop assistant is acting on instructions? Would you really want to shoot the messenger?

The UK is well known in Europe for having the highest level of alcoholism. For every one person who is addicted to a class A drug, there are six people who are addicted to alcohol.

A BBc web page states "There is an urgent need for the government to give as high a priority to tackling alcohol dependency as it does to addressing drug misuse."

How does the government do this? Since 2002 drinkers no longer need to finish their drinks so that the pubs can close at 11pm. The pubs can now stay open later because when the law was changed, "Ministers also hope[d] the changes would help "encourage a more civilised culture in pubs, bars and restaurants".

No that makes complete sense to me. Take one drunk, aggressive person who knows of no other way to entertain themselves than to get blind drunk night after night. Add lots more alcohol and a very tired publican. Stir in some equally drunk buddies, and voila - problem solved. The result? A "more civilised culture".

But at the same time the law was changed to ensure that this drunken behaviour is limited to people over 18. Apparently it is OK to turn 18 and have no experience with alcohol. Not that I am encouraging excessive drinking at any age, but there is nothing wrong with anything in moderation. I just wonder how many 18-year-olds learn moderation from an older generation who is encouraged to spend longer hours in the pub so that they can achieve a "more civilised culture".

Of course the same government is hell-bent on ensuring that nobody under the age of 18 gets access to alcohol. Hence the law which ensures that a shop assistant who sells alcohol to anyone under 18 will be severely punished.

But it does not stop there. A shop assistant is by law also obliged to refuse selling alcohol to anyone who may provide that alcohol to a person under 18.

What is the result of this? A woman and her 20-year-old son cannot buy a bottle of wine for Sunday lunch, because the son, who is with the mother in the shop, cannot at that moment prove that he is over the age of 18. His mother's word is not acceptable to the shop assistant. And what will happen if the son is by any chance 17 years and 364 days old? The shop assistant will get a hefty fine and lose their job.

Can the same shop assistant sell the same bottle of wine to the next customer who has her 11-year-old son with her? Of course. In the judgement of the shop assistant, the 11-year-old is too young to drink, and the mother would not give the alcohol to the boy. And we all know that no child would ever steal alcohol and experiment with it at any age. And the moon is definitely made of cheese.

Next in the row is the lady with arthritis in both hands. She brought her 15-year-old daughter and 14-year-old niece with her to carry the groceries. Can she buy wine? Of course not. In the opinion of the shop assistant, there is the risk that the lady will force-feed the wine to the two girls, or even offer them each half a glass of wine with their meal, under her supervision. Sorry, madam, no sale.

What kind of society allows - no, forces - teenagers to police parents? What kind of government resolves alcoholism problems with longer pub hours? What kind of nation allows a government to put barely-out-of-school shop assistants in a position to be the moral judges of the nation?

We created this government. We can create a different government. Do we know what we want from the government we create? Or do we just want to sit back and see what farcical legislation they come up with?