, Retail
A Trading Standards officer stands outside a convenience shop in Nottingham on a Thursday afternoon with a fifteen year old volunteer, her parents' consent and a body-worn camera. The volunteer goes in, picks up a four pack of lager, and takes it to the till.
The assistant is nineteen. It is busy. She scans the item, the screen prompts her for a date of birth, she taps past it, and takes the money.
That sale is a criminal offence committed by her, personally. It is also a problem for the premises licence holder, for the designated premises supervisor, and for the business, which will now be asked what training it gave and will have to prove it with something more than an assertion.
The list is longer than alcohol and tobacco
Most operators know the headline restrictions and get caught by the rest of the list.
Alcohol is 18, under section 146 of the Licensing Act 2003, which makes it an offence to sell alcohol to a person under 18. Tobacco is 18, under section 7 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 as amended, raised from 16 on 1 October 2007. Nicotine inhaling products including e-cigarettes and refills are 18 under the Nicotine Inhaling Products (Age of Sale and Proxy Purchasing) Regulations 2015.
Then the ones that catch people out. Knives and bladed articles are 18 under section 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, and that covers a great deal more than kitchen knives, including some tools and razor blades. Corrosive products are 18 under section 3 of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019. Fireworks are 18, with category 1 indoor fireworks at 16. National Lottery products moved from 16 to 18 in October 2021. Aerosol paints are 16 under section 54 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003. Petrol is 16. Solvents and butane have their own rules. Some over the counter medicines carry restrictions set by the pharmacy regulator rather than by age of sale law.
The list moves. Single-use vapes were banned from sale across the United Kingdom from 1 June 2025 under regulations made in each nation, which is a prohibition rather than an age restriction, and further tobacco and vape legislation has been before Parliament. Treat the age restriction list as something you check annually rather than something you learned once.
Separate offences exist for proxy purchase, where an adult buys on behalf of a child, and for persistently selling alcohol to children. Under section 147A of the Licensing Act 2003, two or more unlawful sales at the same premises within three consecutive months is a separate and much more serious offence, punishable by a substantial fine and by closure of the premises for a period, in addition to any review of the licence.
Challenge 25 is not a law, and you should treat it as one
Challenge 25 is a policy, not a statute, in England and Wales. It asks staff to request identification from anybody who appears to be under 25 when buying something restricted to 18.
In Scotland the position is firmer: Challenge 25 has been a mandatory condition of premises licences under the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 since 1 October 2011.
The reason to operate it everywhere is the defence. For most of these offences, the defence available to the individual and to the business turns on having taken all reasonable steps to establish the person's age, or on the person's age not being reasonably apparent. Reasonable steps means asking for identification and examining it. A margin of seven years between the legal age and the challenge age is what makes that workable, because judging whether somebody is 18 is hard and judging whether they might be under 25 is easy.
Acceptable identification should be defined in your policy rather than left to the person on the till. The standard list is a passport, a photocard driving licence, a Ministry of Defence identity card, and a card carrying the PASS hologram. Digital identity is developing, including digital driving licences, so set your policy against what is current and update it when it changes.
Train staff on what to look at, not just whether a card was produced: the photograph, the date of birth including the year, the expiry, and whether the card has been tampered with. A card handed over by somebody who does not look at you while they do it is the classic tell.
The refusals register is the evidence you will need
If you refuse a sale and write nothing down, the refusal never happened as far as anyone else is concerned.
A refusals register, whether a bound book by the till or a function in your point of sale system, records the date, the time, the item, a description of the person and the member of staff who refused. It takes thirty seconds.
It does three things. It demonstrates that your policy is operating, which is precisely what a court, a licensing sub-committee or a Trading Standards officer wants to see. It shows patterns, such as the same person trying at the same time each week or one shift with no refusals at all when every other shift has several. And it reminds staff, daily, that refusing is normal and expected.
An empty refusals book in a shop near a school is worse than no book, because it is evidence that nobody is challenging anyone.
Till prompts help but they are not a system on their own. A prompt that can be cleared with one tap becomes muscle memory within a fortnight. A prompt that requires the date of birth to be entered takes longer, slows the queue and is considerably harder to bypass without thinking.
Training that stands up when somebody is prosecuted
The business defence depends on showing that you did everything reasonable, and "we told them" is not a system.
What holds up is documentary and dated. An induction covering age restricted sales before the person is allowed on a till alone, signed and dated by both of you. A written policy naming the products, the challenge age, acceptable identification and what to do when a customer becomes aggressive. Refresher training at set intervals, recorded. Records of till prompt configuration. Your own test purchases, run by somebody in the business, with the results recorded and acted on. Records of supervision, and evidence of what happened when somebody got it wrong.
Discipline matters here in a way that feels harsh. If an assistant makes an unlawful sale and nothing happens, your training records are undermined, because the business demonstrably did not treat the rule as important.
Support the person at the till as well. Age restricted refusals are a common flashpoint for abuse, and retail workers are assaulted over them. Make it explicit that refusing is backed by the business, that staff can call a manager, and that abuse is reported. Legislation in Scotland already creates a specific offence of assaulting a retail worker, with the position elsewhere in the United Kingdom evolving.
The consequences of getting this wrong are not only financial. The individual who made the sale can be prosecuted personally and fined. The premises licence can be reviewed and revoked, and a convenience shop without an alcohol licence is usually not a viable convenience shop. The closure notice under the persistent selling provisions shuts the alcohol side for a period, immediately.
Where this shows up in the game
Shops are part of Business Baron's full game, and the Pub & Bar is one of the five business types you can run for nothing. Licensing is one of the regimes the game runs, alongside unannounced inspections that ask for your records. Training and a refusals register cost you time every week, and they are what you point to when somebody asks.