Traders stick to under age sales laws (From Tivyside Advertiser)

Traders stick to under age sales laws

3:05pm Friday 11th January 2013 in News

Ceredigion Trading Standards Officers carried out two underage sales exercises throughout the county.

 

These exercises were part of the Trading Standards business plan to routinely carry out a number of test purchases. Trading Standards also took into account any complaints they had received recently about businesses selling age-restricted products to children. 

Trading Standards received the help of three volunteers, two aged fifteen and one aged sixteen to carry out the test purchases. The test purchases concentrated on alcohol, tobacco, fireworks and video games. Each of these products have their own dangers for children and it is important they are controlled correctly by traders.

In total, twenty-three test purchases were carried out in the Aberystwyth and Lampeter areas. Premises included in the exercise included supermarkets, mini markets, post offices, petrol stations and videogame stores. The result was that none of the traders sold age restricted products to the volunteers with the majority of traders asking for the age of the volunteers then refusing the sale.

A spokesman for Ceredigion County Council’s Trading Standards Section said about the exercise, “This is an encouraging result with every trader being diligent enough to not sell age controlled products to our volunteers. We would like to encourage the traders that were not visited as part of this operation to ensure that they understand the dangers of selling age controlled items to children.”

Reflecting on this positive result, Trading Standards intends to carry out a similar exercise next year to those businesses and areas that were not included in this exercise. As well as responding to any complaints made to regarding the sale of age restricted products to children.