EXMOUTH off licences have warned that imposing a minimum price for booze will harm business.

EXMOUTH off licences have warned that imposing a minimum price for booze will harm business.

This week the Government's top medical adviser, Sir Liam Donaldson, proposed that alcohol should be priced at a minimum of 50 pence per unit.

He said that this would help stop binge drinking, especially among young people.

But the manager of one Exmouth off licence who didn't want to be named said: "What they mean is a minimum price for the cheapest alcohol, so basically they are targeting and discriminating against the poorer drinker.

"It's always the same isn't it? It's always the poorest and least well off that are targeted."

The leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, said: "Minimum alcohol prices? How out of touch Sir Liam Donaldson is. He's forgotten, if he ever knew, that we gave away that power to Brussels years ago.

"This would be an unlawful restriction on inter-community trade under Article 28. "Whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing is another matter entirely, but it's simply not in the competence of the UK government to do such a thing.

"It falls under the 75 per cent of our laws that are made by foreigners in Brussels and which we have to obey whatever we think about them.