Underage sales

Southwark trading standards enforce the laws prohibiting the sale of age restricted goods to underage children. Many types of goods are subject to age restricted sales

• Cigarettes and tobacco, 18
• Alcohol, 18
• Knives, axes and blades, 18
• Fireworks, 18
• Aerosol spray paints, 16
• Lottery tickets, 16.
• Petrol, 16
• Solvents (where abuse suspected), 18
• DVDs, videos and certain console games, 12,15,18
• Replica and lookalike guns and crossbows, 18

If you know of any local shops that are selling such goods to underage children contact us in confidence.

We work to stop underage sales in a number of ways:

• We offer retailers free advice, information leaflets and agecheck point of sale materials.
• We offer free training sessions for managers and retail staff
• We undertake educational work with young people to raise awareness.
• We undertake covert test purchasing using young volunteers to check compliance.
• We can prosecute, issue fixed penalty notices or caution those who make illegal sales.
• We can instigate reviews of alcohol premises licenses resulting in suspension or revocation.
• We can seek a court order banning certain persons or premises from selling tobacco products.
• We were the first London borough to introduce its own multi-function proof of age card.
• We run a good practice award scheme to acknowledge responsible retailing as well as a knife charter for retailers. For further details see below.