CRACKDOWN ON BOOZE BOUGHT FOR YOUNGSTERS

Police in Edinburgh today launched an initiative in the Leith area to discourage adults from buying booze for under-18s. 

Those who get caught ‘proxy-purchasing’ alcohol for underage drinkers could face a £5,000 fine or 3 months in prison or both. There’s now a helpful digital advertising screen at Shrub Place Lane reminding everyone of the fact. 

The move is part of Operation Savana, involving local police, the Scottish Alcohol Industry Partnership (SAIP), and City of Edinburgh Council. 

Tip of an iceberg

‘We currently believe that the issue of proxy purchasing is under-reported within the Leith area,’ says Chief Inspector Kevin McLean, Local Area Commander for North East Edinburgh.

‘One of the key aims of this campaign is to ensure the public contact police if they witness someone buying alcohol for minors.’

Community Safety Leader, Cllr Cammy Day, says: ‘Alcohol consumption can cause young people to take more risks than they normally would, and as well as impacting their health and making them more vulnerable, this can also lead to anti social behaviour or violence’.

Not the whole picture

Spurtle can see the common sense behind all this, particularly if it concerns children and young teenagers.

We’re also aware, however, that this is not the complete or only picture.

First, there is a problem with inexpensive alcohol. Cider and vodka are the cheap and potent exhilarates of choice for many young people. Change the pricing structure, and some of this problem would evaporate. Perhaps SAIP might like to look in the mirror.

Second, we seem to be constantly demonising other people’s teenagers and their feckless parents when in fact these reprehensible elements are often much closer to home.

Young people have always been risk takers. Hence, many loving and pragmatic parents we know allow their older but still under-age teenagers and friends to socialise in the house, loosely supervised, with a limited amount of alcohol which they have proxily purchased for the occasion.

Not crackpot but caring

They argue that this isn’t a relinquishment of parental responsibility.

The realistic alternative, they say, would in many cases be sons and daughters going out in the evening having lied about their intended plans and whereabouts. Said offspring would then proxy-purchase their booze from an older associate, and end up hideously blootered in the bushes of a local park, causing and attracting trouble, with nobody sober nearby to sort them out.

Finally, as recent behaviour around Princes Mall has shown, part of the problem not addressed by Operation Savana is societal. We still don't offer enough, comparatively safe, affordable and fun things for young adults in city centres to do.

Got a view? Tell us at spurtle@hotmail.co.uk and @theSpurtle and Facebook

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