A trading standards officer walks in with a 16-year-old volunteer, your newest team member sells them a bottle of rosé, and suddenly you’re reading a letter about criminal offences and licence reviews. Failed test purchases are survivable — but what you do in the following fortnight decides whether it stays a £90 lesson or becomes a suspended licence. Here’s the process, the penalties, and the recovery playbook.
What happens immediately
- The seller commits the offence (sale of alcohol to under-18) — typically dealt with by a £90 fixed penalty notice or prosecution (fine up to £5,000… in practice magistrates’ fines are lower for first offences).
- The premises licence holder / DPS may also be liable under ‘allowing’ offences if systems were inadequate.
- The failure is logged against the premises. Expect a follow-up visit and a second test purchase within months.
The one that ends businesses: persistent selling
Two underage sales at the same premises within three consecutive months is persistently selling alcohol to children — fine up to £20,000, and the police/trading standards can offer a closure notice (voluntary suspension of alcohol sales for up to 14 days) in lieu of prosecution, or push for a licence review. Reviews after underage sales regularly end in suspension, stripped hours, or a revoked licence at repeat offenders.
The due diligence defence
The seller has a defence if they took all reasonable steps — they asked for ID and were shown convincing fake ID, for example. The premises has a defence if it had genuine systems: a written Challenge 25 policy, till prompts, refusal logs actually used, and documented staff training with dates and signatures. Training records are the difference between “rogue employee” and “negligent operator” in the eyes of a committee — this is precisely what our AUASP and age verification courses evidence.
The 14-day recovery playbook
- Day 1: retrain the seller AND the whole team; document it. Suspend the seller from alcohol sales until retrained.
- Day 1–3: audit till prompts, signage, refusals log; fix gaps; date-stamp everything.
- Week 1: write to trading standards/police describing the failure and your remediation — proactive engagement changes their posture.
- Week 2: mystery-shop yourself. A second failure in the window is the catastrophe scenario; make it impossible.
- Ongoing: refusals log reviewed weekly by the DPS with a signature — the single document committees ask for first.
Frequently asked questions
Can the volunteer lie about their age or look older?
Test purchase volunteers are under 18, look their age by design, and answer honestly if asked. If your staff member had asked their age or for ID, the test ends with no sale — that’s the point.
Does a failed test purchase go on the seller’s criminal record?
A fixed penalty avoids conviction; prosecution can mean a criminal record — and for a personal licence holder, an underage sale is a relevant offence that puts their own licence at risk.
Should we tell our insurer or landlord?
Check policy and lease terms — many leases have compliance clauses. A review that suspends the licence certainly engages both.
Tighten the ship before the second visit: the AUASP course takes each staff member about an hour and gives you the training records that win due-diligence arguments.
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