Five Tauranga licenced premises caught selling alcohol to minors

Five licenced premises in the Tauranga area were caught selling alcohol to minors during a controlled purchase operation on Friday.

The sting, undertaken by the Tauranga City Council Alcohol Licensing Team and Tauranga Police Alcohol Harm Prevention Co-ordinator, uncovered several breaches of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act.

This operation differed from previous controlled purchase exercises, which primarily targeted off-licence premises such as bottle stores, grocery stores, and supermarkets where alcohol can be removed immediately after purchase.

In this instance, the minor purchased alcohol on-site and remained seated within the premises in Tauranga, Mount Maunganui and Pāpāmoa, providing staff with an additional opportunity to assess and verify age. 

Staff did not take appropriate steps to request identification or confirm the person's age and admitted to inspectors they assumed the individual was over 18 years of age and legally able to purchase alcohol.

Tauranga City Council chief licencing inspector Sam Kemp said selling alcohol to a minor is a serious offence.

“This demonstrates clear deficiencies between legal obligations and good practice and the actual behaviour in relation to how some staff at on-licence premises are verifying the age of patrons before selling alcohol."

Although it’s not a legal requirement to verify the age of any patron who appears to be under 25, Sam said licenced premises should consider it good practice in the industry.

“We were surprised by the failure rate of this operation. We had expected that there would be much better compliance from these types of establishments and it’s really disappointing that we have seen these failures from these five premises,” Sam said.

Kemp added that "our team will continue to run such operations to test compliance, ensure public safety and minimise alcohol related harm".