Staffordshire Police Licensing Unit has issued a Closure Notice to a pub in Leek town centre from sell after it was sold to underage customers.
The Roebuck Hotel, in Derby Street, sold alcohol to juvenile volunteers posing as customers twice within a one-month period (between 28 Feb and 14 March) and by doing so committed the offence of persistently selling alcohol to children.
The venue can remain open if it wishes to sell food and non-alcoholic drinks.
In a statement issued by the pub they said
We will be unable to serve alcohol at the Roebuck from 17.00hrs Thursday 7th May 2014 until 17.00hrs on Saturday 9th May. We will remain open for the sale of soft drinks, hot beverages and our great local food offering!
Having failed two underage test purchases, carried out by Trading Standards, our licence has effectively been suspended for a 48 hour period. We at Titanic Brewery take very seriously our commitment to local community and our accountability for making sure alcohol produced by us, and consumed on our premises, is drunk responsibly. This includes making sure that the law is upheld and minors are not allowed to purchase alcohol. These two failures amongst half a million transactions that take place in our pubs per annum are still taken seriously by us. Since they occurred we have implemented training for all our staff that is fully documented, paid for the printing of posters reminding our customers of the law, and had our till software rewritten to remind bar staff every time they make a sale to check the customer looks over 25 or ask for ID. However, despite all our efforts it was still considered by the licensing officer to constitute the offence of persistently selling alcohol to minors and as such our license to retail alcohol has been suspended as detailed above.
I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for our failures, and apologise to those customers who are unable to enjoy a drink in the Roebuck’s wonderfully convivial surroundings during the suspension, and I hope that you will come back to our community as soon as possible.
I would also like to reiterate Titanic Brewery’s commitment to responsible drinking, our local communities, bringing people together in safe supervised environments and to avoiding in future being considered irresponsible retailers or in any way a threat to society!