Mark Daniels: Checkout Charlies
Aren't Supermarkets great?
No, they really are. I know that, as publicans, we love to loathe the damned places, citing them as a close second to the dreaded smoking ban for all the reasons why our businesses are failing but, at the end of the day, Johnny Public doesn't really give two hoots and they seem to enjoy the horrid places.
Honestly, they do. Last Wednesday I was in my local supermarket, at ten in the morning, and the place was heaving. It was as if all the mothers, relieved that their little cherubs were back at school, had needed an excuse to get out of the house and could think of no better place to go than Tesco.
But you can't really blame anyone for using supermarkets. At the end of the day, where else can you go where, under one roof, you can pick up a bag of tomatoes, hairspray, meat for Sunday lunch, and a bottle of wine for dinner tonight? And, if it's hubbies birthday, you can pick him up a nice television, a DVD player, a computer, and some condoms too. And the latest Stephen King novel.
There seemed to be all the magazines in the world (except the naughty ones) available, and all the day's papers, too.
I can get the latest CDs, DVDs and mobile phones in my local supermarket. Need a lightbulb? Aisle eight. Uncle Ben's sauce? Aisle four. If I spoke Polish, there are even a few shelves of dedicated produce, just for me.
Prescription medication? See the pharmacist. New pair of glasses? There's an opticians right in the middle of the store! Some cigarettes for later? Go to the tobacco counter...
Apparently, I can get my photos printed and even get the car insurance sorted out as well.
I swear, if prostitution were legalised, Tesco would be the market leader, with a wide choice from their Value and Finest ranges.
It's no surprise, then, that people like to buy their alcohol there too. And while I bear no great grudge towards the supermarkets in general, I do tend to get frustrated with their rather lackadaisical approach to selling booze.
Plenty of suggestions have been put forward to try and manage the way supermarkets purvey their alcoholic substances, including a different levy of tax, a minimum age of 21 for the off-trade, and even alcohol licenses. All of them are great ideas that would help manage some of the irresponsible purchasing that goes on, but all seem to have been dismissed as unworkable.
I couldn't help noticing the other day, however, that a rather large flaw in the whole Tesco-and-friends system exists.
If I want to get some cigarettes, I have to go to the cigarette counter, where somebody responsible for the sale of tobacco will sell me fags emblazoned in stickers that tell me smoking will stop my sperm working, and that cigarettes might kill me. If I want to buy Piriton for my hayfever, I have to go to the pharmacy counter, where a trained individual will ask me if I'm going to drive or operate heavy machinery and then warn me that it might make me a teensy bit drowsy.
But if I want to pick up twenty four cans of Stella I can chuck them on to a conveyor belt where a sixteen year old far more interested in what's on the front cover of Heat magazine will shout "alcohol!" and somebody four aisles away will look up and nod. Job done.
Nobody will ask me whether I'm planning on consuming all twenty-four cans, nor warn me that drinking too much might make me vomit on my friends or that I might wake up in the morning with a bit of a headache. And once I've walked out of the shop, nobody will care if I clamber in to the driving seat of my Jeep and slug back one of the cans before driving in to the petrol station.
As publicans, we are legally responsible for the sale of alcohol on our premises. We can be held accountable if we knowingly sell to somebody who is already drunk, or who is going to get behind the wheel of a car. Every member of staff who works behind the bar is legally required to ensure that drinks are not sold to people under the age of 18, and stiff penalties are in place should something naughty occur.
Yet as I stood in the supermarket the other morning I watched somebody, who in my pub would probably have been asked for ID, purchase a pant-wetting amount of alcohol and walk out the door without a flicker of an eyebrow from anybody.
These days, in many supermarkets, you can even go to serve-yourself-checkouts.
Alcohol is a legally controlled substance. Why then, in a supermarket, is it not sold at its own counter, where a properly trained, licensed and responsible adult can at least try to make sure that a group of teenagers isn't about to sneak several cans of Special Brew down to the local park?
