“The Alcohol Act is clear: sales of alcohol to minors is prohibited. This should initially be easy to relate to, but time and time again, Juvente has shown that it does not work in practice.

Since 2007, Juvente has carried out 12,596 inspections in Norwegian stores. During these checks, children between the ages of 13 and 16 go into grocery stores and try to buy alcohol without identification, without lying about age or trying to look older than they are. Nevertheless, our young inspectors are allowed to buy alcoholic beverages in as many as 1 in 4 cases. This corresponds to 3179 successful purchase attempts in 13 years. The real number is probably much higher.

On average, our minors buy three alcoholic units per experiment. This means that our minors have bought more than 9,500 alcohol units in the last 13 years. In comparison, the alcohol consumption of an average Norwegian is equivalent to 450 beers during the year. This means that Juvente minors have bought alcohol to cover an average Norwegian consumption for over 21 years.”

Find more from Skjenkekontrollen (Norway, 2021)