The Sense Group has expressed approval for the control of bottle shops in entertainment areas to limit the sale of alcoholic beverages to minors.

Joseph Farrugia, chief executive of The Sense Group, said that a major concern to the authorities and many parents has been the indiscriminate and abusive sale of alcoholic beverages to passers-by, irrespective of age, by some of these outlets. The result has often been that young people buy alcoholic beverages at a cheap price and end up bingeing on the streets. These new measures should be conducive to combat an emerging bingeing culture and to make the recent legislation concerning underage drinking more enforceable.

Mr Farrugia said that The Sense Group, representing producers and importers of alcoholic beverages in Malta, have always been in favour of removing access of alcoholic beverages to underage people, and that such initiatives, together with appropriate educational campaigns, helped to promote more responsible consumption of alcoholic beverages by persons above the legal drinking age.

‘We have always been outspoken about our position regarding the bottle shops, and we are satisfied that action is being planned in this respect’, Mr Farrugia said.