Youth protection Young people were given alcohol in one in four cases in Aargau

Young people sent out for test purchases in Aargau received less alcohol and tobacco last year than in previous campaigns. There is still a lot of room for improvement in online retail, where youth protection regulations were not observed in most cases, as the canton announced on Monday.

Compared to previous campaigns, the sales outlets performed better in the physical test purchases, according to the Department of Health and Social Affairs (DGS). The 14 to 17-year-olds tried 243 times to obtain spirits, beer, wine or tobacco products. They did so in restaurants, large-scale distributors, retail outlets, take-aways, petrol station stores, kiosks, bars and at festivals in 43 municipalities in the canton of Aargau.

In 35 out of 137 attempted beer and wine purchases (26%), they received the desired drink, as the analysis shows. There were fewer youth protection violations in the case of spirits with 13 out of 70 sales (17 percent) and tobacco with 7 out of 36 sales (19 percent).

Beer ordered for youth clubs

In 9 out of 10 online purchases that took place between May and December 2023, the young mystery shoppers in Aargau were able to purchase alcohol. They used an app to order drinks from a delivery service at their location, for example in a park, at the train station or at a youth club. According to the DGS, the existing technical means of age identification are not sufficient to ensure the protection of minors.

The figures from the test purchases carried out by the Blue Cross Aargau/Lucerne in cooperation with the Aargau regional police forces, the Aargau addiction prevention service and the DGS addiction specialist unit also show other major differences between the sales locations: most unauthorized sales took place in retail outlets (40 percent) and in bars (38 percent). Petrol station stores and kiosks fared best with 13 percent.

SDA