Schoolboy banned from buying pack of wine gums... for being too young to drink

By Andrew Levy for the Daily Mail
Updated: 17:34 EST, 22 October 2009

While under-age drinking is rightly frowned upon, there is no law that says a teenager cannot satisfy his sweet tooth.

But when 15-year-old Jaz Bhogal left a discount store after buying a packet of wine gums, he was horrified to find a member of staff chasing him down the street.

Jaz was then ordered back to the premises where the 99p Haribo sweets were confiscated and he was given a full refund.

'Under-age': Jaz Bhogal was told he needed to be 18 to buy a packet of Haribo wine gums at a store in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire

When he demanded an explanation, a member of staff at the 99p Stores outlet in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, explained that he needed to be 18 or over to buy anything containing alcohol.

Jaz, who was out shopping with a friend at the time, said: 'I couldn't believe it. He asked how old I was and, when I said I was 15, he said he couldn't sell me the sweets.

'He said they had wine in them and pointed to the word wine on the packet. I was absolutely speechless.'

Speaking at the family home at nearby Leverington, the boy's mother, Sue, 36, added she thought he was pulling her leg when he complained to her about his experience.

'I thought Jaz was joking with me when he came home and told me what had happened,' she said.

'It is ridiculous and I would have been really cross if I had asked him to buy them for me.'

Wine gums contain no alcohol but are named after the lingering fruit flavours which, according to confectionery lore, make them 'similar to the experience of savouring a fine wine'.

They have traditionally had the names of alcoholic drinks printed on them, such as port, sherry, champagne, claret and gin.

One theory is that they were invented as treats to be used as an aid to help drinkers cut down on their alcohol consumption.

This may have something to do with British confectionery maker, Charles Gordon Maynard, who invented the sweets in 1909 and was the son of a staunch Methodist and teetotaller.

Yesterday, bosses at the 99p Stores outlet said they were investigating how the pack of Haribo wine gums came to be classed among banned items such as adhesives and knives.

They suspect it may have been mistakenly included on software used by the tills.

Spokesman Graham Barnes said: 'Because the Wisbech store opened fairly recently, there seems to have been an unfortunate glitch.

'We have rectified this and are sure it will not happen again at any of our UK stores.

'To show that we have a good sense of humour we would like to offer Jaz a nine-item voucher in the store - on condition that at least one of these products is wine gums.'

The 99p Stores chain was founded by entrepreneur Nadir Lalani in 2001 when the first outlet opened in Holloway, North London.

Since then, it has expanded to 107 stores, serving around 600,000 customers each week.

The recession has allowed the chain to accelerate its growth, for example by taking over 15 stores that were part of the collapsed Woolworths group.

Comments (112)

Share what you think

 View all

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

 View all

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

We are no longer accepting comments on this article.

Who is this week's top commenter? Find out now