Outrage over alcohol-flavoured rock

11:03am Friday 18th July 2008

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Seaside souvenir shops across Brighton and Hove have been criticised for selling alcohol-flavoured sticks of rock to children.

Packs of lager, whisky, gin-and-tonic, brandy and beer flavour rock, plastered with the words “possibly the best boozer bag in Britain”, are on sale next to cheeky postcards and kiss-me-quick hats along the seafront.

The brightly coloured £1.99 treats have been branded “irresponsible” by a leading alcohol awareness charity. Clare McNeil, a spokesman for drugs and alcohol charity Addaction, said: “Using alcohol as a way to market sweets to children is irresponsible and must be discouraged.”

Staff from the Brighton Rock Shop, in King’s Road, said the Boozer Bags had first been released around ten years ago.

One staff member, who asked not to be named, said: “I don’t really see what the fuss is about. It’s just a sweet.”

Another worker, at the Rock Shop on the Palace Pier, said: “We’ve always stocked them. They’re very popular. We sell them to people of all ages. They don’t actually have any alcohol in them so there’s not really an issue.”

The sweets are thought to be on sale in resorts across Sussex. Holidaymaker Michelle Gregory visited Hastings this week with her son Jack, eight, and niece Sky, six, and was outraged when the youngsters started pestering her for the product.

Michelle, 33, a marketing director, said: “It’s disgusting to think they’re marketing a product that trivialises alcohol like this to young children, particularly when we’re already a nation of binge-drinkers. It sets a terrible example.

“Kids naturally want to copy their parents. If they’re being given this kind of thing as a holiday treat, it’s only a matter of time before they start raiding the liquor cabinet.”

Boozer Bags are also on show in the window at the Old Fashioned Candy Shop in Hastings, which sells traditional pink rock. The shop courted controversy four years ago when packs of Insult Rock, featuring four-letter words, were displayed.

Lee Ripley, manager of Portsmouth-based Candywise Confectionery, which makes Booze Bags, said: “There is no actual alcohol in these sweets. It’s just a mixture of fruit flavours to get as close as we can. We intended the packs to be sold to adult holidaymakers so they could be taken home as gifts. We will have to discuss the positioning of our product with the retailer in question.”

He added Candywise makes another product which contains vodka cocktail-flavour sweets.

In February, Hastings was highlighted as a youth-boozing hotspot, when every child who appeared before its youth court admitted drinking before committing crimes.

A recent Office for National Statistics study revealed thousands of children as young as 12 are drinking regularly “to get drunk”.

The Information Centre for Health and Social Care also found 14 under- 16s are treated in hospital for drinking every day.

Hastings Borough Council is looking into the sale of Boozer Bags at the Old Fashioned Candy Shop.