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Taken from the Lincolnshire Echo site:-

A Police officer today told of his embarrassment when staff at a village shop refused to serve him a sausage roll.

Counter staff at the Co-op store in Nettleham, near Lincoln, turned PC Dougie Brown away after he tried to buy the snack.

When he asked why, he was told in front of stunned customers that it would breach licensing laws.

Staff had been instructed to comply with section 178 of the Licensing Act 1964, which forbids the serving of "food or drink" to officers in uniform.

PC Brown said he understood why the staff had refused to serve him but was still shocked by the incident.

"Technically they were within the law and I accept they were quite entitled to do what they did," he said. "But what they did was embarrassing to me and unhelpful to my role in the community.

"It also goes against the spirit of this law, which was originally enacted to deal with drunken policemen 150 years ago - that's hardly relevant in today's society."

A spokesman for Lincolnshire Police said the incident had only occurred because the store where PC Brown attempted to buy the snack was a licensed premises.

"Lincolnshire Police respect the policy of the Lincoln Co-operative Society. However, we do encourage our officers to interact with their local communities," he said.

"One way of doing this is for our employees to take refreshments in the area where they work, visiting local shops and businesses in the process.

"Constable Brown was very embarrassed at finding himself in this situation at the head of quite a substantial queue in the shop. We have spoken to the local Co-operative Society and are working towards resolving the apparent conflict between their needs and ours, in an amicable way."

Lincoln Co-operative Society chief executive Kevin Cooke said he completely condoned the actions of his staff.

"The staff took the correct action - they have undergone a course of training in relation to the licensing act," he said.

But Mr Cooke said he had "every sympathy" with PC Brown and the society would work with the police to ensure the incident would not happen again.

"My understanding of the law is that we can serve food to an on-duty policeman if we have permission from a superior officer," he said.

"We hope to get such authority so that this kind of incident simply won't happen in future.

"The act is due for review and has become an anachronism. It is nonsensical that we cannot serve food to police officers."

Read more: Shop Staff Refuse to Serve Police Officer. - General - Visordown

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Why was a soldier in uniform trying to buy cigarettes in the first place? Service people should have pride in service and uniform. Smoking/buying cigarettes in public in uniform is akin to glue-sniffing in uniform, or being drunk in uniform - not illegal, but very definitely bad for the public image of the services. The only place that it should be acceptable to smoke in uniform is when out of public view - e.g. in the mess or, when off duty on overseas ops - though I would prefer that to be banned too.

If (god forbid) I ever had to work in an off-licence or tobacconist, I would refuse to serve anybody in a uniform representing a public service too (i.e. police, military), and I would give them a good earful too about representing their uniform.

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