Preventing Underage Purchases
As a retailer you have a responsibility to prevent young people below the age of 18 from obtaining tobacco products by purchasing them in your store.
It is difficult to tell how old someone is, but add any number of the following factors and the job becomes even more difficult:
- Adult dress
- Deception Tactics
- Busy store
- Intimidating attitudes
- Large Groups
- Threatening Behaviour
These are all factors that you and your staff will be subjected to as a retailer of tobacco.
However you can protect your staff and yourself and uphold the law by following simple and steadfast policies on this issue.
The No ID No Sale Policy
- Be Cautious – it is very hard to tell a young persons age, so ensure that staff are checking even those that look older than 18. Adopt the Challenge 25 policy - if they look under 25 ask for proof.
- Be Consistent – always check even if you think you’ve served the customer before or you are pretty certain they are the right age.
- Be Clear – use signage to inform customers that they will be checked
- Be Courteous – if you have to refuse a sale, have to hand application forms to offer the customer so they can obtain a proof of age card.
- Be Conscientious – ensure that you and your staff record all refusals including date, time, appearance of the customer, items refused and staff name for every refusal (an example refusals log can be found in the ACS Licensing Guide Toolkit)
- Be Careful – there is evidence that retail staff can often fail to challenge underage purchasers if they feel afraid of the consequences. Make sure you and your staff feel safe when serving and have the confidence to challenge the customer.