From an economic perspective sensible, organizationally practical, and yet a nightmare for parents: the goods at the checkout area of retail. These products placed at eye level there lure impulse purchases. For alcohol-dependent people this can become a problem—as between chocolate bars and chewing gum there are often small bottles of spirits and liqueurs.
Politicians from the Left and Volt factions in Hamburg-Nord advocate that alcohol should disappear from supermarket checkouts. With a corresponding motion in the district assembly they want to support alcohol-addicted and voluntarily sober individuals in their abstinence.
Because resisting the temptation to reach for alcoholic beverages offered cheaply and in small quantities during the waiting time at the checkout—alongside other impulse-buy items—is especially difficult for people with addictions.
Through the placement and the unavoidable standing in line at the checkout, shopping becomes a stress-filled situation for people with addictions and for sober alcohol-dependent individuals, where they constantly must fight the impulse to relapse. These triggers could be avoided by a small change in the presentation of the products.
Danger of Normalization
Wiebke Fuchs, district councillor of The Left, sees the problem in the everyday nature and normalization of alcohol: “The supermarket is a place you cannot avoid,” she says. Especially at such everyday locations, it should be easier for those affected to avoid alcohol.
The representative wants, in addition to behavioral prevention, to strengthen environmental prevention: “We should shape our surroundings so that they do not get alcohol-dependent people into trouble.” Because the responsibility is not solely with the individual. “Addiction is the opposite of freedom,” says Fuchs.
Furthermore, placing alcoholic beverages between sweets and chewing gum contributes to a normalization of the intoxicant. Thus, children and adolescents are led to believe that the alcohol that sits among the impulse items intended for children there is, by comparison, as little health-risky as the other products lined up there.
Now the Left and Volt factions in the district assembly have proposed to sensitize local grocery chains to the establishment of alcohol-free checkouts. The background of the motion is the “Alcohol-Free Checkouts” campaign, which since 2024 has been advocating for the implementation of the demand through petitions, lectures, letters to supermarkets, and on social media.
Wir sollten unsere Umgebung so gestalten, dass sie alkoholkranke Menschen nicht in Schwierigkeiten bringt
Wiebke Fuchs, The Left, Hamburg-Nord
It is important for both the initiators of the campaign and the factions of The Left and Volt to emphasize that this is not about an alcohol ban, but about a responsible handling of the alcoholic beverage.
Yet the district assembly rejected the proposal by a majority on Thursday evening. Wiebke Fuchs sees the reason in the volatility of the topic. “With other topics of environmental prevention, a discourse is often easier,” she says. “But the issue of addiction is morally highly charged.” Nevertheless, she intends to continue pursuing the attempt to remove alcohol from the checkout area.
In response to a query to the four large grocery chains Aldi-Nord, Lidl, Rewe, and Edeka, only Rewe wished to comment on the demand. The group sees no need for action. “Alcohol as an impulse-buy item plays now no or only a very small role in the front-end checkout assortment,” Rewe stated. “This can vary from market to market within our cooperative structure.” The placement there has practical reasons: “Since the items offered there are all so small, they do not fit into the organization system of the classic market shelves.”
Also in response to the parties’ request that the companies voluntarily remove the spirits from the shelves, only Rewe responded and offered another argument: Removing the bottles from the checkout area would increase the risk of pickpocketing—another problem that, according to Wiebke Fuchs, could be solved differently.
Additionally, the initiators are indeed willing to compromise: it would already be a step in the right direction to set up a checkout without impulse-buy items per supermarket, which customers could switch to. Another option would be to store alcoholic beverages behind the checkout, in the secured areas where cigarettes and tobacco products are also kept.
