Our earlier post about carding senior citizens was all well and good, but here’s what life’s like from the other side of the register, according to Behind the Counter: “Nearly everyone who works a register and is faced with the prospect of selling tobacco and alcohol ought to be very, very afraid. Why? Because the federal government is watching you and will deliberately try to bust your Wal-Mart khaki-clad behind!”
Enforcement is strict, and the consequences are severe. Says the author of the blog:
A friend of mine who worked at a convenience store actually had that happen to him because he wasn’t paying attention on a holiday weekend and sold a pack of Marlboro Lights to a kid that looked 25 but was really 16. The episode cost him his job and almost $4,000 in attorney fees and fines. They don’t play.Every single time anyone who does not look old enough to have fought at Normandy tries to buy tobacco or alcohol from me I feel an icy stab of fear grip my chest. “Is this the one? Are there agents watching? Is this a sting?” We’ve had the ID traps run at our store. Cashiers have been fired and arrested.
Read the full post, which includes details of Customer Service “Mystery Shoppers,” who swoop in like Dementors to suck the—well, not joy exactly, but whatever it is you’re supposed to be feeling when you’re at work—from your skull.
(We still think it’s foolishness to card a 74-year-old man.)
“Why are some retail places retentive about proving your age?” [Behind the Counter — and our first title for this post was, "Retail Double Agent Reveals Big Brother Conspiracy Behind ID Checks!"]
(Photo: Getty)
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I’m just going to jump to the end here and comment. I work at a grocery store that sells beer (not at my store, but others in other states) and their policy has changed over the years from “card with discretion” to “card if they look under 30″ to the current “card everyone.” That might seem a little excessive, but it’s brought the rate of violations down to 0. Not close to zero, but actually no violations in the past X amount of years (I’m unsure of the exact number).
@MystiMel: They should have asked for your ID when you used your credit card as well, but they were totally right not letting you use your mom’s, even if you have the same last name. Just because you have the same last name as someone doesn’t mean you’re related to them and it certainly doesn’t mean that you’re in good standing with that person and that they are letting you use it. It’s not like people haven’t had bad divorces where one person goes on a spending spree for spite. If it’s not your card then you shouldn’t be using it, end of story. That’s why your mom’s name is on it and not yours.
“Next on Sick Sad World!”
I love the Daria reference so much I was unable to give a damn about the rest of the article. It would have been too anti-climatic. [For some reason, I idealize the 90's]
I knew a guy in high school who was (well) paid by the cops to do these types of stings. He was 15 or 16 but literally looked about 30. Definitely done by local level cops and not feds.
Although I’ve never worked anywhere that sold alcohol or tobacco, I did have to card people buying spray paint and industrial solvents. The police tried several times to catch clerks at the store selling that stuff to underage kids (<18). It’s not worth losing your job over, even if the pay is sucky.
People need to get over their indignity about showing ID for purchases — especially when they know that the clerk has a legal right (responsibility) to check. If I buy beer, I have my ID out (regardless of how old the clerk might think I am).
Having lived under the You Vill Show Us Your ID Und You Vill Enchoy It regime for so long, it amazes me to remember the shit that we used to get away with back in the day; a friend of mine used to get into bars with an “Arizona Drivers License” that he typed onto plain uncoated cardstock, no picture or state seal (this was in Illinois, where no one knew what an Arizona DL looked like).
I think that it started to change sometime in the mid to late eighties, around the time that states had to standardize their drinking age at 21 or lose their federal highway money. Police Boy Scout Explorer units [en.wikipedia.org] would recruit some twenty-year-old kid with a heavy five-o-clock shadow and already-thinning hair who would go around to convenience stores and try to buy beer and give them grief if he was carded; the cops got an easy bust at the expense of some poor slob working for minimum wage. By the early nineties, when I moonlit briefly as a retail clerk at a drugstore with a booze section, it was drilled into our heads to card, card, card. Middle-aged ladies were flattered, teenagers whined. (My fave: “But of course I’m 21! I have a kid!” Good one.)
To be honest, I could care less if they ask to check ID for alcohol/cigarette purchases. I get a little annoyed when they ask for ID for cc purchases, but at least my wallet’s already out.
The one that really pisses me off is standing in line to get a receipt checked to leave the store. No thanks, I’ll pass.
i really have no problem showing ID when asked & there’s a few stores that always ask regardless of age. it’s easier for employers to teach employees to always ask rather than trying to instill discretion, so that doesn’t phase me.
i do have a HUGE problem with clerks getting lambasted with fines for not carding though – esp. if it’s a discretionary policy. fining someone the equivalent of 2 months worth of wages seems excessive.
i like pennsylvania’s policy to curb the sale of booze to minors – they place undercover cops at the register in liquor stores* & if you’re caught buying as a minor or for minors, you’re going to jail. going after the buyer is the key – a minor who wants booze or smokes will find a way to circumvent laws & whatever policies a store puts in place to enforce them, so let’s go after the real “criminal” here. let junior explain to mommy why he needs $2000 to pay a fine for buying booze with a fake ID.
*(pa liquor stores are state-owned, so that’s how they get away with this)
I used to work at a Walgreens when I was 16. It was illegal for me as a 16 year old to even sell tobacco products, yet I was placed on the front register and told to sell the product. I always checked id and even told my manger I didn’t want to do the job up front- put me elsewhere. I was afraid that I was going to be the one busted for my age, not the tobacco buyers. I ended up quitting after 3 months.
Several years ago, before the big crack down on ID’s, I worked at a convenience store in Kentucky. This 9-10 year old kid came in the store and tried to buy chewing tobacco, and I refused to sell it to him. His big ole mean daddy came in and yelled at me and told me the kid had been chewing it for several years, and I better sell it to the kid. Didn’t do it, was in a mean mood that day. Later the owner of the store said something to me about it, but I told him I’m not selling tobacco to a 9 year old. Now, in WAlmart I get carded to buy tobacco and antihistimines, and i’m almost 60. Times have changed.
The funny thing with this is that it is anything containing alchohol or nicotine. A few years ago I was carced buying a box of Nicoderm patches. I looked at the cashier and asked: “You mean you have to check if I’m old enough to quit smoking?”. She just glared at me…
What IS it with y’all and showing ID? Why is this such a hard rule to follow, when it was put in place for the betterment of society.
Stores would rather be safe than sorry. And yes, even if you look 70, you might get carded, because it’s more important for you to experience latent teenage rebellion than for this min. wage worker to lose their job, incur heavy fines, and possibly face incarceration. You’ve got your wallet out anyway: just pull out your ID and enjoy your booze.
Stores are within their rights to ‘refuse service’ to belligerent customers who refuse to show ID. You don’t want to follow their rules, don’t shop there.
I swear, if they had failed to card someone underage, y’all would be calling for their heads!
@Buran: Word. As annoying as it is (I frequently have to use my ailing parents cards to run errands for them) it’s put in place for a reason. I usually use the debit part of the check card and enter the PIN.
I’d rather have stores ID everyone trying to buy age-limited products. Maybe sometimes you want to let off the people with gray hair and wrinkles, but better safe than sorry – unless you can reasonably assume that everyone coming through your door is over 21.
I have always looked older than my true age (I’m finally catching up now that I’m in my late 20s and still have acne). Looking back, I could have gone and bought beer for my friends as early as 14 with reasonable success. In fact, at that age, I was once asked if I was another 14-year-old’s mother. I was responsible, and brought up to honor the law, but most other kids aren’t. CARD EVERYONE!
Toilet paper is apparently an age-restricted product at my local drug store, and I got GRILLED when I tried to buy the 12-roll package because I NEEDED TOILET PAPER. Apparently I looked like a teenager on my way to TP someone’s house. Jerks.
“Stores would rather be safe than sorry. And yes, even if you look 70, you might get carded, because it’s more important for you to experience latent teenage rebellion than for this min. wage worker to lose their job, incur heavy fines, and possibly face incarceration.”
How does carding the elderly better society exactly?
It seems like an annoying waste of money for federal, state, and local agencies to waste so much time on issues such as this, but perhaps they area actually making a cash flow from over-enforcing subjective and not particularly life-threatening (in themselves at least) crimes.
The owner of a local conveience store got busted for selling beer without asking someone for their identification. The guy he was selling beer to was a regular customer and was of age. The guy behind him was an undercover for the state and immediately stopped both of them and fined the store and cashier. I’m sorry, but that’s completely ridiculous.
I shop at that store at least once a week. The cashier had no reason to ID me every single time I bought beer or cigarettes because he knew me. Now he has to ID me every single time just in case someone is watching. Life really seems impersonal when you have to provide your ID to people who know you just because “Big Brother” might be lurking.
I am 27 yrs old. I get IDed all the time, even when I buy Claritin DS or any over the counter prescription with some sedative. I ask the cashiers what they think How old I am…They always think I am 17 yrs old. I know understand why, here in Utahrd, people treat me as a teenager :@
When I was a bartender at a local watering hole, we had to worry about “Project 21″. The County PD would hire Junior Detetctives (aka. 19 and 20 year olds who wanted to be cops) to go into stores and bars and attempt to purchase alcohol w/o ID. IMHO, it was entrapment… pure and simple. These “agents” were from out of town and stuck out like a sore thumb. When one appeared, bartenders would call each other (out of professional courtesy) to put out a warning.
One night I get a call, so I keep my eyes peeled. In walks and 18 or 19 y.o. girl, boobs out to “here” in a low cut shirt, tarted out in enough makeup to make a Bratz doll look like an Ivory girl. She came right up to the bar and hefted her cleavage at me while asking “What do you have on tap?”. I run down the list, and she settles on Coors light. I draw the beer, walk back, and hold it in my hand. “You wouldn’t happen to have ID on you, would you?”. “Umm.. no. [Boob waggle, blinky eyes]” (Shocker!). I proceed to pour the beer into the slop sink and say “Sorry… Guess you’ll just have to move on down the strip and find another sucker. Try to be less obvious next time because ‘boobs’ in the face doesn’t work on everyone.”
That Saturday, another bartender in my place got caught right at the 6:30 shift change. He was arrested, taken out in a grand spectacle of flashing lights and handcuffs. He was in the crime watch of the paper the next day for “Contributing to the delinquency of a minor”.
I generally carded anyone who appeared under 30, and/or wasn’t a recognizable local or regular. The policy became “anyone under 40″ after the one arrest.
I worked in a convenience store a few years back and it was policy to card anyone who looked under 35 for alcohol or tobacco (apparently I could sell the porno mags to anybody). I worked graveyard and it was an out of the way store, so I rarely had problems. The local kids knew another store policy which was never interfere with theft so they would just come in grab a case and run. It really just made it easier for all of us.
I currently have a buddy who runs a few bars here in Oregon and they are required to check everyone for ID. The requirement being that you must be 21 and be in possession of ID proving such.
Our state heavily regulates (and taxes) the sale of alcohol. The only liquor that can be purchased outside of a state run liquor store or bar is beer and wine. You can’t even enter a liquor store or bar if you are under 21.
@bnet41: “Project 21″ was the County PD working in conjunction with the SLA (State Liquor Authority).
@Javert: It >IS< in your hands because no matter what happens to your employer, you’ll get arrested. Your company should have provided you training on how to recognize it’s stated ID limit. If they didn’t, it’s in your best interest to ask everyone. Do it disarmingly: “I’m sorry to have to ask, but can I see your ID. My manager is doing spot checks today, and I really don’t want to get in trouble.”
@Murph1908: Anhauser-Busch also provided us a free photographic guide to Drivers Licenses and State issued ID cards for the US and Canada. So your faked “Virginia Drivers License” wouldn’t get you served either…. 2 minutes looking through a book or a night in jail is a no brainer. If it looked the least bit suspicious, we’d ask for a second ID. If one couldn’t be produced, we confiscated it and told them to pick it up at the police station the next day.
@full.tang.halo: That’s exactly it.
In Illinois, you are asked to card everyone that looks under 35.
Personally, I used to card every one. Period.
Now, if someone comes in that looks 65, you don’t have to card them. There is no law that says that you must card everyone.
Chiming in late with my two cents–
Places that card: bars, liquor stores, tobacco shops, convenience stores, grocery stores, video game stores…
Yes, video game stores. Used to work at GameStop, where you had to card ANYONE who was buying an M rated game. I didn’t care if you looked 16 or 60 – I asked you for your ID. Not only was that the rule, but in my mind at least, it was fair. Not just picking and choosing because of how old I thought they looked.
Usually, when someone obviously older than 18 (wrinkles, gray hair, balding, etc.) came in, and I carded them, I’d crack a joke about it – “You must be mistaken ma’am – you certainly couldn’t be fifty-eight!” They’d usually smile, and– “See? Lookit that smile!”
That smoothed the way for me telling them that, really, I carded everyone – it was fair and equitable. No one gave me shit for it, either.
@lawnmowerdeth: Cigarettes I’d agree. Booze, no, because of all the idiot drunk drivers.
Isn’t a grocery store not selling ANYTHING to anyone under 21 discrimination?
The stores can card everybody or anybody. Their house, their rules. As long as the policy is applied equally and without discrimination they can have any rule that they want that allows them to comply with age limitation laws.
Regarding the stores that refuse service to anybody below the legal age, regardless of the product being purchased:
Actually it is a business policy that prevents a clerk from selling an unauthorized product to somebody underage. Since there are products that “might” be alcohol free and there are products that “seem” to be alcohol free and then there are the products that are “oh my gosh that has alcohol in it”, it places a great deal of stress and liability on the clerk. By carding everybody and prohibiting the sale of ANYThing to somebody under age, the store is erring on the side of caution.
@Onouris:
No discrimination. Discrimination rules would apply if the store let one class, group etc etc below the age limit purchase some products, while prohibiting another class, group etc etc from purchasing the products.
As the store is prohibiting the sale of anything to anybody below the legally appropriate age of some of the products in the store there can be no discrimination.
@Darren666: How does it hurt?
What I have really found to be unfair is the way the laws treat the people selling these products. If the kids get caught buying underage, they usually get stuck with a few hundred dollars in fines and court costs, plus a weekend picking up trash on the road. Now for the store employee, they get stuck with a few thousand dollars in fines, their face in the newspaper, and they usually lose their job. Even worse off is the store owners, who end up with tens of thousands in fines, potentially losing their license to sell alcohol and tobacco, and going out of business as the worse case scenario.
This does nothing to solve teaching kids to drink responsibly and about the dangers of tobacco products. Even worse, is that many states will even imprison parents who do offer their kids a safe and responsible place to drink in. So instead of learning how to have a few beers or glasses of wine at meals, or even how to handle yourself at cocktail party, kids get to learn how to chug Popov and Natty Lite until they vomit and stop breathing at some friend’s house. Oh and the person who gets in trouble with the law for that is the one who bought the booze.
It’s all about making the state money in fines and being able to say they are making progress in the war on underage drinking. High school kids are still drinking and this fact of life will most likely continue until the end of time.
@amoeba: They have to card everyone who buys Claritin, and it’s not an age thing. It’s because you can use Claritin to make methamphetamines and they want to keep track of who’s buying the stuff.
@Jesse in Japan: They have to card everyone who buys Claritin, and it’s not an age thing. It’s because you can use Claritin to make methamphetamines and they want to keep track of who’s buying the stuff.
Sudafed (pseudoephedrine), not Claritin. Claritin is just an antihistamine. Pseudoephedrine is an amphetamine precursor.
@Hambriq: Hambriq, when I was in America two months ago for a friend’s wedding, I got some Claritin to take back with me to Japan. The pharmacist made me write down my name and driver’s license number in a registry. He explained that it was because people could use Claritin to make crystal meth and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation wanted to know who was buying it. Now, I don’t know that he wasn’t lying, but he’s been my family pharmacist for ages, so I took his word for it.
@StevieD:
Except age discrimination, and not letting people under a certain age buy anything at all?
If a company decided never to employ someone above a certain age because they’re too old, that would be discrimination.
@Hambriq:
I have seen some places where if you want Claritin-D, you have to someone behind the counter. I’m not a pharmacist, but I’m guessing it’s because of the decongestant it contains?
Claritin is loratadine, a totally benign decongestant.
Claritin-D contains loratadine and pseudoephedrine. Pseudoephedrine is Sudafed. Acambras is correct; because of the decongestant in Claritin-D, you have to present your driver’s license to the pharmacist and they record all your info, etc. etc. etc. Basically, anything with pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) in it. This includes Claritin-D, Allegra-D, Mucinex-D (a total ripoff, by the way), Advil Cold + Sinus, Sudafed (not Sudafed PE), Drixoral, all the store-brand equivalents of these, and countless more I’m probably leaving off.
Factually speaking, Jesse in Japan is wrong, but I understand the confusion. It’s the “D” in Claritin-D that forces you to buy it behind the counter. Either the pharmacist was misinformed, or wasn’t clear enough that it was the “D” in Claritin-D that was being used to make meth, or something was lost in the translation.
I’m not trying to condescend at all, especially because I know that these distinctions can be very confusing. I just want to clarify.
I work as at a customer service desk @ a big super market, and I had a very young girl try and buy cigarettes, I told her I needed an ID, because some old people really do look young.
She did have an ID so she got no cigarettes. The next “customer” was an agent who made me sign a bunch of papers stating that I did not sell cigarettes to a minor, and that the store passed some test.
@Hambriq: You’re right. It was Claritin D.
Who do I report a store that sells cigarettes to minors, concerned parent in Pa.?
As a former convenience store worker, I can definitely sympathize. I used to ID all my customers, and tell any who objected that, “I have to enter the DOB from your license. If I don’t, a red flag pops up on the receipt saying I didn’t ID you, and when the manager comes in in the morning I’ll lose my job.”
I don’t like lying to people like that, but I’m not too keen on getting a $500 fine, losing my job, and going to jail because I made a sale to a 20-year-old undercover agent who looked 27.