Parents should take blame for kids
the acs
asked consumers what they
think of the under-age drinking problem. chief executive james lowman r
W hen immersed in the political maelstrom that is the national alcohol policy debate, it is easy to believe everything you read and hear. Recently, the story has been that alcohol-related disorder blights every part of the country and that "dodgy off-licences" are to blame. It was therefore surprising and reassuring to find in a recent poll we commissioned that only 33% of people said
their community suffered from under-age street drinking. This finding was a timely reality check that, while we are dealing with a very serious minority issue, most people are not affected by the problems that dominate the headlines.
An even more telling statistic was that, of the people questioned, 54% think parents have the greatest responsibility for tackling the problem; 26% thought it was a matter for the police; and only 9% thought that shops and supermarkets had the most responsibility.
Views differed according to age: young people aged 16-24 are more likely (49%) to see the police as shouldering the greatest responsibility to tackle the problem; and those that are most likely to blame parents (65%) are the 35 to 54 year olds - the age profile most likely to be parents of teenagers themselves.
Of course, this does not mean that these people did not think
shops and supermarkets were
entirely blameless. More than half (54%) of them thought
retailers were not doing enough to prevent under-age drinking and smoking. This is not surprising, but retailers could take heart from the fact that 35% of the general public said
they thought retailers were doing enough. The challenge is to convince the other two-thirds.
It is very important to keep a handle on what people think, and not simply concentrate on what the national media and the politicians portray as the public's view.
The most emphatic answer
this polling exercise provides is the sense of parental accountability for under-age drinking. This is a message
the government should listen to.
Last month's pronouncements by Home Office minister Vernon Coaker about the need to crack down on "dodgy off-licences on estates" should, on one level, be dismissed as clumsy spin used to shift attention from the increasingly unpopular licensing reforms. But does this rhetoric also betray a tendency to look for blame rather than solutions?
Unfortunately, the blame game gives way to knee-jerk and easy-option policy reactions. A case in point was that, at the same time as talking about "dodgy off-licences", the minister was outlining the government's latest policy decisions - specifically the move from three strikes to two strikes and you're out for under-age sales offences.
This will not change attitudes to under-age drinking, and surely no one was fooled into thinking
it would.
So
how does
the government
plan to deal with the parents
who either do not know what their children are doing, or sanction their drinking and anti-social behaviour?
We have been told
a key part of the alcohol issue is educating and deterring young people from anti-social drinking. We have also been told that parents are key to success, but we have seen no action to back up the rhetoric. What our research shows is that the public aren't fooled, and sooner or later the government is going to have to confront what the public knows is the biggest cause of the problem.
The full results of the poll will be unveiled at the Association of Convenience Stores summit at the Birmingham Metropole on April 24.
ACS poll: key findings
33% say their community suffers from under-age street drinking
54% think parents have the greatest responsibility for tackling the problem
26% think it is a matter for the police
9% say shops and supermarkets have the most responsibility
54% think retailers are not doing enough to prevent under-age
drinking and smoking
35% think retailers are doing enough
49% of 16 to 24 year olds think police are responsible for tackling under-age drinking
65% of 35 to 54 year olds blame the parents.
Source: GfK NOP survey on behalf of the Association of Convenience Stores
