hope i'm on right page.a couple of weeks ago,the sun newspaper was carrying a front page full advertisement for Iceland..my wife works in a food retailers,and her job in a morning is to display newspapers..when the shop manager arrived,he ordered her to take the Iceland advert off all the copies of the sun,and bin them,she did so reluctantly..am I right in thinking that Iceland had paid for this advertising,and he has no rights to refuse to sell papers with advertising on.the manager controls 2 shops,and he did the same at both shops..thanx in advance
The manager was only falling into line with what the major supermarkets effectively do anyway.
Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury's et al won't sell newspapers with 'wrapper' ads for their competitors, so there are special print runs (without the 'wrapper' ads), distributed through Menzies, delivered to the big supermarkets.
I would have thought the shopkeeper has a contract with the distributor to sell the 'paper as supplied. While I find the wraparound covers annoying, I would be indignant if I thought my newsagent was picking and choosing what to sell me.
//after hillsborough alot of newsagents in the 'Pule refused to sell the Sun//
I think that’s quite different. A shop can choose to sell a product or not, but I’m not sure it is entitled to modify a product, for example selling separate packs of sweets that are originally packaged to be sold in multiples – or splitting multi packs of cigarettes that are not meant to be split and sold individually.
The topic of shops splitting multi-packs has come up many times on AB. It's perfectly legal and the only action that the manufacturer can take if it happens is to refuse to supply stock to that retailer. (Given that small retailers get their stocks from local wholesalers, that's clearly impractical anyway).
The only exception would be if only the outer packaging carried information about things like 'sell by' dates or food allergens and the packaging on the individual items didn't.
Splitting bulk packs of cigarettes (e.g to sell individual packets of 20, rather than a multi-pack of 200) is similarly lawful as long as the individual packs carry the necessary health warnings and comply with all labelling legislation. (Splitting packs of 20 cigarettes, to sell them individually or in tens, is illegal though because the law prohibits sales of fewer than 20 cigarettes at a time)
my Newsagent takes all the loose rubbish out of papers before he puts them on the shelf or sends them out for delivery. My local supermarkets have bins for it.
I can remember visiting my 'aunt' Joan (who was actually just a friend of my mum) when I was a kid. She used to get annoyed that the local shopkeeper wouldn't always sell two Senior Service to her younger son because, at the age of 6, he was considered too young to buy them for his mother. So she had to wait until her older son came in from playing in the street, so that she could get her nicotine fix. Being all of 8 years old he could always get served with ciggies ;-)
My experience of multi-packs being broken up is negative. I came across 4 toilet rolls in a multi-pack, and the packing covering the end one bore the legend "this one free". I tore the packet open and took the free end one to the supermarket checkout, only to get a refusal to let me take it away for nothing.