ALMR urges ban on below-cost selling
8 January, 2010
Trade group against minimum pricing in favour of "sensible and proportionate response"
A ban on below-cost selling, not minimum pricing, is the best way to tackle alcohol-related problems, a trade group has argued.
Responding to fresh calls from MPs for a minimum price, the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR) said a ban would be a “sensible and proportionate response”.
Chief executive Nick Bish said: “Unfettered and deregulated access to bargain booze sold at pocket money prices through supermarkets and corner shops is undoubtedly fuelling consumption.
“Pubs and bars themselves now face paying 44 per cent more for Carlsberg or Grolsch than their customers can buy it at Sainsbury’s or Tesco - that cannot be right.”
The group also urged MPs to promote pubs as part of the solution to alcohol issues.
“Community pubs deserve our protection and support and we must make sure that any measures to tackle alcohol misuse do not damage them in the process,” added Bish.
However, the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) said minimum pricing was “potentially, a way of protecting our pubs, their customers and, ultimately, the health of the nation”.
In a statement it added: “Without the lure of cheap off-trade vodka, consumers would surely start to come back to the pub.
“If the health lobby is prepared to concede that the pub, and the beers served in it, can be part of the solution to excess drinking, rather than the problem, then we are happy to work with them on the introduction of minimum pricing.”
Readers' comments
This would solve nothing. With the bully boy buying power of the supermarkets, they can buy thier stock and sell it at cost well below the recomended 50p per unit limit.