Beauty and the beast: Savers pull plans to sell booze (From Sutton Guardian)

Sutton's Savers Health and Beauty pulls plans to sell alcohol in store

4:00pm Thursday 3rd January 2013 in News By James Pepper

A discount health and beauty store has pulled plans to sell alcohol after concerns were raised by the police about underage drinking.

Savers, in Sutton High Street applied to Sutton Council to sell alcohol between 8am and 6pm Monday to Saturday and 10am to 5pm on a Sunday.

The application was due to be discussed at Tuesday's (January 2) Licensing Sub-Committee, but the company withdrew the application at the last minute.

A police spokesman said there was a "real risk that alcohol could have been sold to children from this premises".

The budget store, which sell everything from fake eyelashes to aftershave and toilet roll, has a notice on the door stating the application had been made.

However, a spokesman for the company said on the day of the meeting: "We can confirm we have withdrawn the current licence application for our Sutton store. We plan to resubmit this later this year."

In a statement, the police questioned the relevance of alcohol to the health and beauty business, and had raised concerns about a perceived "lack of awareness and local knowledge that the business had towards meeting the licensing objectives, which are the prevention of crime and disorder, public safety, prevention of public nuisance and protection of children from harm."

A police spokesman said: "We are focusing on initiatives to keep the High Street a safe and low crime area. However, we believe this application could have led to an increase in crime and disorder."

Savers Health and Beauty is owned by the same company as its neighbour in the High Street, Superdrug, some of whose stores have pharmacies and nurse clinics.

A.S Watson Group bought the UK-wide chain in 2000 and also has The Perfume Shop and Sunkist among its brands.

Currently 133 of Savers' 250 stores sell alcohol.

In London, a number of companies that run pharmacies are involved in an alcohol awareness campaign supported by the London Heath Improvement Board with the aim of "spreading key health promotional messages across all communities".