Nevermind that children would have access to a vending machine.

Just like they have access to scissors. Yet we teach children what danger they carry and expect them - literal humans with stunted ability to foresee consequences - to behave safely with them. Which they do with some edge cases.

Main difference between scissors and alcohol is we restrict people with said stunted ability to foresee from accessimg it, because it's use is nuanced and requires one to be fully responsible for themself. And we assume that an adult person is responsible for themself. Otherwise we ahould not sell knives, cars, allow hiking, bar windows by default...

Stop offloading thinking to others and claim consequences of your own actions.