Rospotrebnadzor did not support the initiative to sell alcohol online

Rospotrebnadzor expressed its negative attitude towards the initiative to allow online sales of alcoholic beverages. This was announced on Wednesday in the State Duma by Oleg Prusakov, head of the department of federal state supervision in the field of consumer rights protection.

According to Prusakov, the position of Rospotrebnadzor is clear – they do not support the idea of ​​​​online trade in alcoholic beverages. He pointed out that when ordering online, the consumer may face the risk of receiving the wrong product, including products that are hazardous to health.

The head of the Ministry of Finance, Anton Siluanov, said on October 3 that the government does not yet have a unified position regarding the online sale of alcohol, but there are departments that support this initiative, including the Ministry of Finance itself.

A ban on the sale of alcohol via the Internet has existed in Russia since 2007, but in subsequent years attempts have been made to legalize this practice. In 2021, the president ordered an experiment to sell Russian wines through Russian Post. This experiment in the online sale of domestic wine was supposed to begin in 2023.

However, there are bodies that express a negative attitude towards this initiative. For example, the Ministry of Internal Affairs noted that the online sale of alcohol does not take into account the ban on the sale of alcoholic products to minors, as well as regional restrictions on the time and place of sale. The Ministry of Internal Affairs noted that the department did not participate in the preparation of the bill.

As Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko stated last year, an experiment in online sales of alcoholic beverages using the capabilities of Russian Post may turn out to be successful. She noted that it is necessary to use “all modern methods of delivering high-quality domestic wine products.”