Irish Ferries
I took a ferry to France recently. Aha, thinks I – Duty Free!!
Went into the duty free shop and had a look around for pipe tobacco. They used to sell this in cartons of five packs [and each pack was 50gms compared to the normal 25].
No tobacco. So I went up to the checkout, and there it was – lovely 50gm packs of pipe tobacco on a shelf.
“Give us ten packs of baccy” says I to the girl. “Sorry” says she, “but I can only sell you two”. “What?” says I thinking the old hearing was failing [again]. “We can only sell two items of tobacco or cigarettes at a time” says she. “OK” says I, “Gimme two packs”. She gave me the packs, I gave her my credit card. All happy. “Anything else?” says she. “Yes please, gimme two packs of baccy” She was happy with this and we went through the whole process again. This happend a couple more times, by which time a nice queue had built up!
But what is the reasoning here? What was the point? I got what I wanted, but at cost to the people waiting behind me. They had no objection to the amount I bought, as long as I bought them two at a time. This must be one of the craziest rules I’ve heard of in a while.
It’s like the rules with painkillers. You can only buy a couple of packs in each pharmacy.. There’s nothing stopping you from going to ten…
No. You miss the point. The girl knew I wanted eight or ten packs. She would have sold me the entire stock if I wanted it. She had no problems with that.
It was the fact that she could only sell two at a time, and each had to go through as a separate transaction.
With painkillers, they will sell you two and that’s it. They will not sell you more. You have to go on to another shop.
That’s quite a bizarre loophole! I like the banner picture by the way. Great composition. Looking forward to more of your rants.
Bizarre is not the word for it. Even the girl behind the till agreed it was weird [and a pain in the backside for her]. I’d write to IF about it, but seeing as I e-mailed them about taking them up on a special offer and they never replied, they are unlikely to reply to this!
Thanks for the comments about the photo. I have a brief note about it on the ‘About’ page. You should see the original [and some of the others I took]!!!
Well guys, Going from Ireland To France Means that you dont cross any foreign bordures as both countries are in the Europe. Therefore you are allowed to 40 cigarettes per crossing which is an allowance of the customs.
The cashier should never have sold more than 2 pack to you even in differents transaction. She could have lost her job and the shop its licence. Therfore be happy to have 2 pack of fags you could have NOTHING! (dutyfree owner on IF)