A joint council and police operation to catch Christchurch businesses selling alcohol to underage minors found a third of them failed to comply with the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act.

Christchurch City Council’s alcohol licensing team and the police alcohol harm prevention unit visited 15 licensed premises on Saturday, including bars, restaurants and off-licences, with a focus on the sale of alcohol to minors.

Christchurch City Council chief licensing inspector Gary Hay said five of the businesses failed a compliance check by selling alcohol to a minor.

Staff did not take appropriate steps to request identification or confirm the patron’s age, he said, and 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 Licensed premises are verifying the age of patrons before selling alcohol.

“Our team will continue to run such operations to test compliance, ensure public safety and minimise alcohol related harm.”

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

“We were surprised by the failure rate of this operation, we expected much better compliance from these types of establishments and it’s really disappointing five premises failed.

“These types of compliance failures are a good reminder for licensed venues to ensure staff are appropriately trained and vigilant in meeting the requirements of the Act.”

As a result of the non-compliance, Hay said Christchurch alcohol licensing inspectors and police will be discussing the failures “with relevant parties and deciding on the appropriate course of action”.

One of these actions could be lodging suspension applications with the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority (ARLA).

Hay said these applications could be in respect of both the managers on duty at the time of the breaches and the licensees of the premises that failed to meet their legal obligations.

The city council said it would not disclose the name or location of the premises involved at this stage.

-Allied Media