An off licence is a
shop that primarily sells
alcoholic drinks to be consumed off the premises. Typically, you can also purchase smoking products and
confectionary at such an establishment. They make an
alternative to
pubs by allowing you to take the alcohol home and charging
less for it. You may find you can buy a
bottle of a given
brand of
beer for
half the pub
price in an offy.
Off licences are not as useful as they used to be because large supermarkets now tend to stay open longer and can afford to sell booze for even less. They also tend to have a larger selection than many off licenes.
You can often spot an offy by the group of underage drinkers hanging around in front of it.