So far, only in the checkout area of supermarkets
Stores, placing alcohol in the checkout area, encourage citizens to spontaneously buy it. So say the authors of the legislative initiative in the State Duma to ban the retail sale of alcohol in the checkout area of shopping facilities. Tomorrow, May 2, State Duma deputies will consider this bill.
– We do not want alcohol to be publicly available at checkouts. We need hidden counters on which alcohol would not catch the eye of the buyer, — Yaroslav Nilov, deputy LDPR faction, told MK.
“When a customer enters a store,” the explanatory note to the bill says, “as a rule, he goes to the very department whose offered goods he needs to purchase — meat, dairy, bakery, vegetables and fruits, etc., and may not go to other departments. However, he cannot bypass the checkout area, since the payment for the goods takes place in this zone.”
The checkout area, the document says, is considered by marketers as one of the most profitable places in the store, since the buyer here is prone to unplanned shopping.
Along with harmless goods (chewing gum, chocolates or sweets like lollipops), shelves with strong alcoholic drinks are often installed near the checkout area.
Thus, according to the authors of the bill, the store actually forces a person, regardless from his desires and needs, without fail to «visit» the alcohol department. The store is trying to encourage visitors to buy alcoholic products, including people who are just at this time struggling with their addiction to alcohol.
The deputies have a whole range of measures dedicated to the fight for a healthy lifestyle and the formation of relevant legislation, as well as for a healthy nicotine-free and alcohol-free generation.
— One of the points in our program is the fight against readily available alcohol at the checkouts in centers and supermarkets,” one of its initiators, deputy Alexei Didenko, comments on his bill “MK”, “We hope that in these anti-alcohol measures, individual initiatives will find support among all factions, if not from the first time, then from the second or third reading. We have been consistent in this direction for many decades.
MK Reference:
In 2022, the consumption of strong alcohol in Russia increased by 7.5% compared to 2021, and amounted to 6.8 liters per person. According to Rosstat, in 2012-2022, more than 500,000 people died from alcohol-related causes. The minimum amount of damage to Russia from alcohol is 5 trillion rubles. per year, which is equal to 1.5% of lost GDP. The revenues of the Russian budget in 2019 from the sale of alcoholic products amounted to 372.4 billion rubles.