For pubs, bars, clubs, restaurants, hotels, off-licences and shops selling alcohol. Training and paperwork for anyone who sells or authorises the sale of alcohol, including new starters, who must be trained before their first shift on alcohol.
Stated as the underlying legislation sets it out, nothing more.
Section 146 makes it an offence to sell alcohol to a person under 18, with a fine with no upper cap for offences committed on or after 12 March 2015. Section 147 covers knowingly allowing such a sale. Section 147A, persistent selling, applies where alcohol is unlawfully sold to an under 18 on the same premises on three or more occasions in three consecutive months: a fine of up to 20,000 pounds, a closure notice from police or trading standards, and the court may suspend the alcohol part of the premises licence for up to three months.
Challenge 25, asking anyone who appears under 25 for photographic ID before completing a sale of alcohol, is industry best practice and the accepted standard. It is not a statutory duty. PHW's training tells staff it is the venue's policy and that departing from it is a disciplinary matter, never that it is the law.
Section 146 gives a defence where the seller believed the individual was 18 or over and took all reasonable steps to establish age, and a separate defence where the licence holder is charged over an act or default by a member of staff and can show all due diligence was exercised so as not to commit the offence. That defence is only ever as good as the evidence behind it: a written policy, dated training records, staff sign-off on what they were taught, and a completed refusals register. An opinion that staff know the rules is not a defence; the paperwork is.
Policy, training, the knowledge test and the records a due diligence defence needs.
This pack is scoped to licensed premises: alcohol sales to under 18s. It does not cover food safety, fire safety or general workplace health and safety, which sit in PHW's separate safety pack range.
A due diligence defence needs a record that outlasts the shift the training happened on.
The pack keeps its own dated training records: who was trained, on what, the knowledge test result and the sign-off, backed by an assessment record and a premises verification statement. A candidate who completes the training and knowledge test is issued a certificate carrying a QR code. Scanning it, or looking the reference up directly, opens a live record showing who was trained, on what, and when: the same record a licensing officer, trading standards or your own management can check without asking you to find a filing cabinet.
Prices and buying for the underage sales prevention pack are in the PHW shop.