CHILDREN can buy alcohol in York with distressing ease. The all-too-familiar sight of teenagers swigging from cans or bottles is evidence of that.

Now we have official confirmation.

This year, York Trading Standards officers have carried out test buying in 24 off licences. One third of the shops sold alcohol to children.

Some of the guilty traders may complain they have been victims of entrapment. That excuse will not wash.

The law is clear: they should not sell alcohol to anyone they suspect to be under-age. There is no other way for trading standards to enforce the law than to catch shopkeepers in the act.

Councillor Andrew Waller today called for tougher measures to be taken against the transgressors. This should be heeded. All of York suffers the hangover from widespread under-age drinking.

The scourge of our times, anti-social behaviour, is inextricably linked with alcohol. Almost every night drunken youngsters are shouting abuse at their neighbours and vandalising property.

The children themselves are the biggest casualties. Early exposure to the culture of binge drinking can do terrible harm to a child. It will take a physical, emotional and social toll, and all too easily leads them to hard drugs as part of a miserable voyage to find new chemical kicks.

So we should be doing much more to steer youngsters away from drinking. As parents, we must teach them a responsible attitude to alcohol. As adults, we should set a better example: the recent rise in drink-drive cases suggests a woeful attitude towards alcohol and the law.

But these efforts will be worthless if reckless off-licence owners keep selling drink to children. If fines do not prove a deterrent, then traders should have their right to sell alcohol revoked for good.

Updated: 12:17 Wednesday, December 10, 2003