Daily Mail Headline reads: Schoolboy banned from buying pack of wine gums... for being too young to drink
While under-age drinking is rightly frowned upon, there is no law that says a teenager cannot satisfy his sweet tooth.
But when 15-year-old Jaz Bhogal left a discount store after buying a packet of wine gums, he was horrified to find a member of staff chasing him down the street. Jaz was then ordered back to the premises where the 99p Haribo sweets were confiscated and he was given a full refund.
When he demanded an explanation, a member of staff at the 99p Stores outlet in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, explained that he needed to be 18 or over to buy anything containing alcohol.
Jaz, who was out shopping with a friend at the time, said: 'I couldn't believe it. He asked how old I was and, when I said I was 15, he said he couldn't sell me the sweets. He said they had wine in them and pointed to the word wine on the packet. I was absolutely speechless.'
Speaking at the family home at nearby Leverington, the boy's mother, Sue, 36, added she thought he was pulling her leg when he complained to her about his experience.
'I thought Jaz was joking with me when he came home and told me what had happened,' she said. 'It is ridiculous and I would have been really cross if I had asked him to buy them for me.'
Wine gums contain no alcohol but are named after the lingering fruit flavours which, according to confectionery lore, make them 'similar to the experience of savouring a fine wine'. They have traditionally had the names of alcoholic drinks printed on them, such as port, sherry, champagne, claret and gin.