‘Liquor flowing freely for underage drinkers in city’

Youth below 25 years of age have easy access to alcohol in the national capital as they are easily able to buy at liquor at vends, bars, pubs, and restaurants without even being asked to furnish age proof, a recent survey has found.

Both the government and private liquor vends, bars and pubs are violating the minimum age law for drinking as none of them check the age of consumers buying alcohol. Out of the 6,000 people who participated in the survey, 3,422 were below the age of 25 but none of them were ever asked for ID proof before buying or being served alcohol.

This was revealed by a survey conducted by NGO “Community Against Drunken Driving (CADD)” to assess the implementation of the Delhi excise law and implementation of law against sale of alcohol to The law on underage buying and selling of alcohol is ‘random and does not specify any penalty’ for selling alcohol to those below 25. It also does not specify any penalty for buyers, the survey said.

those under the age of 25 years and if the age of the buyer is checked at the point of sale or service of alcohol.

The public survey, held between June 1 to August 31 this year, was conducted outside 50 prominent liquor vends, bars, restaurants, etc. of Delhi among 6,000 people in Delhi.

None of the respondents surveyed were verbally informed about the legal drinking, the survey said, adding, that those who appeared to be below the age of 25 were also not questioned about their age and sale was carried out irrespective of the age. However, 97.3 per cent respondents were aware of the age limit on drinking. Most pubs and bars claimed that they are in the business of selling/serving alcohol and checking age was not their responsibility.

Out of the 6,000 people, no respondent was ever faced with any enforcement by excise or police department over.

“Infact the law pertaining to underage consumption, purchase and even selling is non-existent and there has been no recorded enforcement drive to check the legal age of those consuming alcohol or those selling alcohol to underage consumers by police department or by excise department,” the report said.

Respondents also felt that since there are no penalties or punishments for selling or serving to those under 25 years it is highly unlikely that people will restrain from selling it to underage people.