Councils sign up to Boris alcohol ban on under-21s

Authorities across the capital revealed plans to consider asking offlicences to stop selling alcoholic drinks to people under 21.

The scheme is to be tested in Croydon,where shops will be asked not to sell alcohol to 18 to 21-year-olds, even though they are legally entitled to.

Today more councils came out in support of the plan, including Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, Westminster and Ealing.

Some are meeting police imminently in a move to introduce the new scheme, backed by Mayor Boris Johnson.

Ealing council leader Jason Stacey said his borough was fully supporting the scheme. He told the Standard: "It is a great idea and we hope as many off-licences as possible sign up to the scheme. I hope it will reduce bingedrinking among teenagers."

Daniel Astaire, Westminster council ' s community protection spokesman, said: "We take binge drinking very seriously and welcome innovative ideas to deal with this serious social problem.

"We have pioneered our own voluntary-agreement with supermarkets and off- licences in parts of Westminster which are prone to anti-social behaviour.

"The indiscriminate sale of alcohol which blights towns and cities across the country must end, and that applies to both the age of people being served and the type of alcohol. We all need to address the very real social problems which alcohol causes and contributes to, and the industry must play its part in helping to deal with this breakdown in society."

Merrick Cockell, leader of Kensington and Chelsea council, said: "London needs some fresh thinking on antisocial behaviour and this looks like an idea worth exploring. We'll certainly be talking it through with our local police."

The support came as an official report found hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren were drinking six pints of beer a week. The data from the NHS Information Centre found that one in five 11- to 15-year-olds in England - 640,000 pupils - had drunk alcohol in the past week.

Despite the widespread public concern over binge drinking, Diageo, the world's largest drinks company, dismissed the under-21 sales ban idea as "ill conceived".

In a letter to the Standard the company's managing director, Benet Slay, said: "The fact that an 18-year-old could drink alcohol in a pub, club or restaurant, yet would not be old enough to purchase a bottle of beer and drink it at home is clearly illogical.

"If Mr Johnson wants to 'banish the scourge of binge-drinking' he should look to solutions such as enforcing existing alcohol legislation, intervention schemes for alcohol misuse and wider information campaigns on responsible drinking, including information for children on the dangers of underage drinking.

"He should not adopt a policy that will penalise all responsible adults between the ages 18 and 21."