Britons drain hypermarket of beer

STAFF at a hypermarket in Calais besieged by day-tripping Britons buying alcohol for Christmas have put up 'sold out of beer' signs.

'We were selling beer to the British before we could even get it off the delivery lorries,' a spokesman for the Mammouth complex said yesterday. 'It's like a circus. We have never seen anything like it.'

Ferry companies also report huge on-board sales since the lifting of import restrictions. A spokesman for Stenna Sealink, which sells one- litre bottles of Glenfiddich for pounds 7.95, said: 'In one sailing we can sell up to 26,000 cases of Scotch and beer.'

Kent police who set up special checkpoints say they have stopped hundreds of vehicles dangerously overloaded with alcohol.

Meanwhile, British motorists taking advantage of outbound duty- free allowances have been warned not to leave their purchases unguarded in vehicles in the hypermarket car park. Goods worth hundreds of pounds have been stolen in selective smash-and-grab raids. An AA spokesman said: 'We are getting a lot of our members complaining about these attacks.'