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Hi Ed, What a humiliating experience. A similar thing happened in Morrisons to two male friends of mine. One is over sixty and due to ill health sometimes has difficulty walking. The other, who was helping with his shopping, is not much older than your son and looks very young - until he takes off his beany hat and you see his receding hairline! He didn't think to take off his hat when they were refused the purchase of alcohol in similar circumstances to your own. I do wonder if in both cases, yours and my friend's, whether there would have been no problem if the person helping had been much younger, ie. someone rather less likely to be the possible end-consumer of the alcohol? Or a young woman rather than a young man? Would there have been a problem if the older person had not had any obvious disability and had been perceived as being accompanied rather than assisted by the younger person? The obvious excuse that can be given by the store is that the shop assistant was following the policy of refusing a sale of alcohol when it appears that it is being purchased for the consumption of someone under 18. Groups of young lads hang around some of the shops in my area, offering to help with shopping in exchange for the shopper purchasing alcohol on their behalf, as they would definitely be refused. This might well have played a part in my friends' experience. If this is the case where you live then it might explain your shop assistant's behaviour. If the context in your area is similar to mine then I would have some sympathy for the shop assistant, who might have got herself sacked if she had been seen to sell alcohol to you without any proof of your son's age. After writing the above, I wondered about the specifics of the Sainsbury policy on sale of alcohol so had a Google around - and discovered that it is controversial. Sainsbury has a policy of asking for ID if the assistant thinks that the shopper or someone accompanying them looks under 25, not 18. This has caught-out people without any obvious disabilty, so your son might have a problem if he went by himself to buy alcohol at Sainsbury's without any proof of ID. http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sainsburys+policy+alcohol+sales I wonder how people get around the issue of buying alcohol when the carer is under 18 and if stores have any policies and procedures to ensure that people with young carers do not suffer discrimination. Best wishes, Liz On 14 May 2010 07:02, Alice Maynard <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > My own experience is extremely positive, both as an internet shopper > normally and as an occasional 'real' shopper. Knowing Sainsbury's proactive > approach to addressing disability, I think they would definitely want to > know about this so they could make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. I > am not inclined to address feedback to anyone other than the CEO generally - > that usually gets their attention - so I'd encourage you to let him (Justin > King) know! > Alice > > ________________End of message________________ > > This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for > Disability Studies at the University of Leeds ( > www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies). > Enquiries about list administration should be sent to > [log in to unmask] > > Archives and tools are located at: > www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html > You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in to this web page. > -- I raise money for Communication Matters with Everyclick.com Find out how you can help here: http://www.everyclick.com/lizpanton ________________End of message________________ This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies). Enquiries about list administration should be sent to [log in to unmask] Archives and tools are located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html You can VIEW, POST, JOIN and LEAVE the list by logging in to this web page.