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Test purchases in the Wittmund district: child protection fails in 27%!
In the Wittmund district, test purchases show 27% violations of youth protection when selling alcohol and tobacco. Controls and measures planned.
Test purchases in the Wittmund district: child protection fails in 27%!
In the Wittmund district, a current inspection of youth protection has made people sit up and take notice. Test purchases were carried out in collaboration with the police commissioner to ensure compliance with alcohol and tobacco sales guidelines. A total of 51 businesses were checked and 55 purchase attempts were made. The result shows a worrying development: in 15 cases, or around 27 percent, the test buyers received alcohol or tobacco products even though they were obviously underage. The NWZonline reports that in the last test in June 2024, the rate of successful test purchases was still 12.5 percent.
At least 40 companies behaved correctly and did not sell any products to the underage test buyers, which means that the sales staff checked the ID cards in a timely manner. These positive companies were praised for their exemplary behavior. What is striking, however, are the 15 successful test purchases, which consisted of seven alcohol and eight tobacco purchases. In these cases, penalties were initiated against the sales staff and the relevant operations managers were contacted directly to address the violations and reverse the purchase.
A look beyond the borders
Similar problems are also increasingly being observed in Switzerland. According to a study by [20min.ch](https://www.20min.ch/story/ Alcohol-an-jugendliche-testkaeufe-ziehen-bei-ein-viertel-der-laeden-grosse-maengel-103370524), over 25 percent of test purchases in 2024 illegally sold alcohol to young people. Particular attention was paid to points of sale: in bars and pubs the violation rate was as high as 43 percent, while gas stations had the lowest rate at 19.7 percent. Tania Séverin from sucht Schweiz underlines the urgency of the cantons' consistent application of the new regulations.
The youth protection regulations are clear: retailers must ensure that items relevant to youth protection, such as alcohol, tobacco and also films and games, are only sold to people of the minimum age. The Jugendschutz-aktiv page points out that age labels should be clearly displayed and that retailers must check the age of customers in case of doubt. Failure to comply with these regulations can have dire consequences for companies, including fines of up to 50,000 euros.
The Wittmund district administration has already announced that it will continue to carry out such checks in the future to ensure that child protection is taken seriously. So the topic remains firmly on the agenda and it will be exciting to see how the numbers develop in the coming years.