Sainsbury’s has been granted a provisional licence to sell alcohol at its planned £40 million store on the outskirts of Perth.
The company has been in talks with Perth and Kinross Council over a section 75 legal agreement being signed, with moves also afoot to begin essential roadworks on the A9/A85 prior to the development of the site, which will be on the former Perth Mart in Crieff Road.
Planning consent was granted by the local authority in May last year.
On Thursday, members of Perth and Kinross licensing board heard from solicitor Kevin Clancy, who appeared on behalf of Sainsbury’s, and told councillors that the company operates a “very robust” policy on selling alcohol to people aged under 25.
Mr Clancy told board members that the off-sales alcohol area would be positioned towards the front entrance of the store, to act as a “deterrent”.
“It will be positioned there, where there will be a heightened presence, rather than being tucked away in a far corner,” he said.
“The company have a very robust policy on selling alcohol and staff are trained to ‘think 25’ and are expected to challenge customers if they believe they are below that age and request identification.”
Mr Clancy explained that if a staff member aged under 18 checks groceries and comes across alcohol this leads to a “prompt”, which requires a supervisor to enter identification into a computer to allow the sale. The same procedure applies at the self-service check-out machines, he added.
Councillor Henry Anderson, the board’s convener, asked why Sainsbury’s was not adopting its policy of not selling caffeinated wines and ciders, which is the system already in place at its Perth satellite store in the High Street.
Without naming a brand, Mr Clancy confirmed that the chain’s Crieff Road store chain would not be selling a fortified wine that has garnered a bad reputation and said it would be “odd” to have conditions attached to this site when none were given for Sainsbury’s store in Kinross.
He also stressed that there would be both paper and electronic logs of customers aged under 25 who were prevented from buying alcohol at the store.