WorldFailure

Shopper, 25, asked for ID to buy TEASPOONS – as shop worker says they could be used as drug paraphernalia
By Rob Cooper
30th January 2012


Teaspoons: Elinor Zuke, 25, who works for trade magazine The Grocer, was told the spoons could be used as 'drugs paraphernalia'

A woman was asked to prove her age when buying a packet of teaspoons - as a shop worker claimed they could be used as drug paraphernalia.

Elinor Zuke, 25, was told by the self-service checkout at Sainsbury's that she needed age verification as she tried to buy a £1.19 pack of spoons. A shop worker then intervened and said it was because of the risk they could be used for drugs - heroin users 'cook up' the drug in teaspoons. Heroin is an illegal Class A drug - so it is irrelevant whether someone is over 18 - the spoon should not be used for that purpose anyway. The maximum sentence for possessing heroin is seven years in prison or an unlimited fine.

Pensioner told: No ID, no booze
19 September 2009

SUPERMARKET jobsworths refused to sell a white-haired 72-year-old man alcohol because he would not confirm he was over 21.

Despite Tony Ralls’s grey beard and limp, bureaucratic check-out staff demanded he confirm it was legal to sell him two bottles of his favourite Cabernet Sauvignon. The pensioner, feeling punch-drunk, asked to see the manager expecting the situation to be resolved. But when the manager at Morrisons, West Derby, Merseyside, came to the check-out he took Mr Ralls’s wine and returned it to the shelf.

Mr Ralls, a retired insurance firm regional manager, said: “I told the manager, who was about 6ft 4in and 16 stone, that I wouldn’t confirm I was over 21 because it was a stupid question. I felt like saying ’What do I look like? Are you a fool?’ “He picks up the wine and, in the manner of a child taking home his ball, says ’Well, we won’t serve you’. “So I said ’If you’re putting the wine back you can put the rest of the goods back’.”

The dumbfounded grandfather-of-three abandoned his shopping on the conveyor belt and left the store - but not before demanding a complaints form and phone number for Morrisons HQ. Mr Ralls, of Wirral, Merseyside, who has been shopping at Morrisons for two years, said the staff were entirely without humour.

“It is bureaucracy gone mad. If the check-out lady, who was about 40, had asked me with a twinkle in her eye perhaps I would not have been so tetchy. But she asked me the question with a perfectly straight face and I said I wouldn’t dignify the question with an answer. And if the manager had explained that all the staff had to ask everyone because they had previously been fined, but said I was clearly over 21, it would have been fine. But he showed no sense of humour.”

The widower said he had been asked twice before at the store to confirm his age, refused to and was still served “without a palaver”.

A Morrisons spokesman said: “We take our responsibility with regard to selling alcohol very seriously and all our stores operate the Task 21 scheme, which addresses the difficulties our staff face in being able to determine if a customer is legally old enough to buy alcohol. “To further limit any element of doubt staff at the West Kirby store are required to ask anyone buying alcohol to confirm that they are over 21.”

Source: The Sun UK.