State alcohol monopoly outlet closed down temporarily for selling liquor to minors

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One of the three  Alko outlets in Rovaniemi has been ordered to be closed for two days after Christmas, after it was found that three bottles of spirits had been sold to a 16-year-old without checking her identity.
      According to Jaakko Uotila, Managing Director of Alko, this is the first ban on sales within Alko, Finland's state-owned retail monopoly.
     
The girl was caught when she tried to sell the bottles to a group of youngsters in the car park of a local shopping centre and police happened to come by.
     
Director General Ilkka Suojasalmi of the National Product Control Agency for Welfare and Health (STTV), states that the case was such a clear-cut offence against sales control that a mere warning would not have been a sufficient punishment for the liquor store.
      Jaakko Uotila admits that the education and supervision of sales attendants must be improved throughout the entire chain of Alko’s retail stores.
      Moreover, he notes that it is well known that minors try to buy alcohol more frequently, especially as the prices of hard liquor have gone down substantially this year. However, he says that this incident was a human error. The sales person had been misled by the girl’s heavy make-up and the fact that she was tall for her age.
     
According to Suojasalmi, Alko has developed an efficient sales control system to prevent minors as well as drunks from buying liquor. According to statistics, the system has proved quite effective.
      Suojasalmi says that the STTV has no accurate current information as to what the young prefer to drink. However, while medium strength beer is consumed a lot in Finland, even the consumption of hard liquor is apparently growing.
      Moreover, youngsters are price-conscious, and they apparently think that the cheaper it is to get drunk the better. In Finland, the shift in consumption of alcoholic beverages is known to be increasingly towards spirits.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Consumption of alcohol bought in Finland increases by 7.6 percent in first half of 2004 (3.9.2004)

Links:
  Ministry of Social Affairs and Health

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