Metropol

cwathen wrote:

m-in-m wrote:What is the position if a retailer fails to charge for a bag?

If caught the retailer 'could' be fined. This is a fixed penalty of £200 for 'not charging for bags appropriately'. Repeat offenders can be fined up to £5000 for this offence. All fines are reduced if paid within 28 days, and there are separate (lower) fines for not keeping records or for failing to supply them when asked. Whether they would actually be fined for 'not charging for bags appropriately' over a single incident or whether there would need to be evidence of systematic failure to comply is unclear.

I'd be interested to see what happens if a shopper is caught lying to a self service checkout. Whilst this is theft, something of such little value would almost always be written off by the police as 'not in the public interest to pursue'. If the police do investigate and people get taken to a magistrates court and convicted over theft of a carrier bag, it will doubtless open the floodgates for retailers to query why someone stealing products from their store for a much higher value is unlikely to face prosecution unless they are doing it on a serial basis.

m-in-m wrote: In the past week or so I've been given four bags without charge. In one case it was at a petrol station and it might be that it is a franchise and therefore falls below the 250 employee limit. In the other case it was a national retailer famous for their Boxing Day sales that people get up stupidly early for.

I think the idea of defining a small shop not by the size of the unit (or number of people working in the unit) but instead by the total number of people employed by the overall business is one of the more silly points in the legislation. Particularly in the case of franchises where one store of a given brand name might be owned by a single-store franchisee and be qualified as a small business and exempt, but another might be owned by a franchisee with several stores which takes them over the threshold and therefore require them to charge even thought both stores trade under the same name, sell the same products, and are physically similar in terms of size and number of people working there. This will only lead to confusion. Some franchisees also will take exception at people outside the 'system' being able to freely tell how small/big they are as this is sometimes considered commercially sensitive information. It would have been far more sensible to go down the same route as Sunday trading has gone down and base it on the size of the store in question, not the size of the company operating it.

james2001 wrote:Just seen a new (awful) Rob Brydon & family Tesco ad, so it's clearly a full time campaign, not just a Christmas one. Jesus...

james2001 wrote:Just seen a new (awful) Rob Brydon & family Tesco ad, so it's clearly a full time campaign, not just a Christmas one. Jesus...

Andrew wrote:Still not sure what thought processes are going on either with the message or the casting though, how old is "Captain Beatbox" supposed to be?

james2001 wrote:

Andrew wrote:Still not sure what thought processes are going on either with the message or the casting though, how old is "Captain Beatbox" supposed to be?

Probably about 10-15 years younger than the person playing him I'd guess! Clearly meant to be a teenager with an actor in his mid-late 20s (and looks it).

bilky asko wrote:

james2001 wrote:

Andrew wrote:Still not sure what thought processes are going on either with the message or the casting though, how old is "Captain Beatbox" supposed to be?

Probably about 10-15 years younger than the person playing him I'd guess! Clearly meant to be a teenager with an actor in his mid-late 20s (and looks it).

The actor's CV says he plays 20-30.