Dunfermline Press, August 2004

Off-sales urged to get Buckie off shelves

ROSYTH could be the first West Fife community to ban the sale of the controversial drink Buckfast in a bid to curb the menace of underage drinking and anti-social behaviour.
The potent fortified wine has become synonymous with under-age drinking and now police chiefs are backing calls to stop the sale of Buckfast after a six-month ban at a Rosyth shop proved a big success.
Inspector Christine Flynn said, "At the moment Buckfast is a big problem all across West Fife and the fact that it's so strong and gets you drunk quickly is what makes it so appealing for youngsters.
"I think a ban would definitely reduce the problems we have with under-age drinking.
"A lot of shops across West Fife have already stopped selling it but we have no real power over what licensed shops sell; we can only influence them."
The Naafi Family Store on Castle Road, Rosyth, stopped selling Buckfast in February after shop manager Gill McNicol got fed up with drunk yobs intimidating customers outside the shop.
She said, "We used to have a lot of bother outside the shop from the youngsters drinking Buckfast and causing trouble so we just decided to get rid of it.
"We did sell a lot of Buckfast but it's not worth it compared to hassle-free shopping for our customers.
"People used to be scared to come down here late at night and there was a particular problem with the older ones buying it for the youngsters."
Rosyth community police officer Kenny Greig commended the Naafi's stance against Buckfast.
He said, "It was something that was trialled in Kinross before and a ban would be a big encouragement for our work because Buckfast causes real problems.
"More often than not the bottles end up getting smashed and because the drinkers are gathering in places like play parks it causes problems for the rest of the community."
He continued, "There is a core of underagers' that all they want to do is go out and get drunk and then you have the followers. It's the followers who we target when we go into the schools to give talks."
"One big concern is the number of under-age girls that we find drunk. The picture in last week's Press of the girl in the swing park with the Buckfast bottle is an all too common sight."
However, Buckfast spokesperson Jim Wilson described calls for a ban as "naive" and said under-age drinking will not be combated by banning Buckfast.
He added, "Buckfast has become an easy target because of the bad publicity it has received in recent years but the problem won't go away if you ban Buckfast. You have to remember that we have less than 0.5 per cent of the total market. I think it's naive to think that one brand of alcohol is responsible for all this anti-social behaviour."
Rosyth West councillor Pat Callaghan said, "I support the idea 100 per cent and would like to see it extended to takeaway shops as well because there's evidence that youngsters are now getting their drink delivered from these places instead.
"If they're wanting to drink then they'll drink but it's important to get the right message across and a ban would get us on the right track to solving the problem."
Rosyth Community Council is considering writing to all licensed shops in Rosyth to ask them to join the ban but Shehzad Aslam, owner of the Spar shop on Admiralty Road, thinks that getting everyone to agree might prove difficult.
He said, "Buckfast often causes more problems than it's worth so I think it would be a good idea but it's a case of trying to get all the retailers to agree, you would need everyone on board or it's not worth it.
"We ID everyone under 21 so that's not the big problem for us. What we see is older people coming in and trying to buy like six bottles of Buckfast and we refuse them because we know they are for other people."