Are there still bars and clubs that have this policy?
A friend of mine, who recently left his job as a doorperson at a club to join the corporate world, says it is now a memory. It was too difficult to enforce, he says, plus which it decreased revenue. But look at it from the POV of an 18-20 year old. Your options, without this policy are:
Go to the straightup nonalcoholic teenybopper clubs. Now, you don’t have to drink to enjoy yourself, but at that age, you’d rather hear a live band than a DJ. You’ll be surrounded by high-school student’s, who are no longer your speed, and many of those places don’t allow anyone who is 18 or over, the better to exclude predators.
Group up in parking lots. Not good: you’ll end up getting a hard time from cops, which won’t look good on your record when you do turn 21, plus you’ll rub elbows with the same predators against which the soda clubs bar their doors.
Hang out with your friends at home. Which usually leads to drinking illegally obtained alcohol, because you have to do something to make it interesting. All well and good, except at that age you’re itching to get out and meet new people, even if you have to do it sober.
So is 18-enter/21-drink a thing of the past? I hope not. I understand proprietors’ concern for the bottom line, but in the long run it does more good for society.
I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I went to such a club in S. Carolina five years ago when I was 19. I thought the notion of such a club was ludicrous, even back then. No clubber who’s old enough to drink wants to hang out with people who aren’t. Exactly what clientele are these places trying to attract?
From personal experience at several schools, I think #3 is the option young(er) people on college campuses these days are embracing. It is the main reason there is so much more binge drinking and dangerous drunkeness among the 18-21 year old set than there used to be. It’s much harder to enforce the law at a private party than a public club. If you ask me, I don’t think raising the drinking age to 21 has been much of a success. Now we may have fewer drunk drivers, but more teenage drunks and all their attendant problems.(i.e. disturbing the peace, vandalism, etc.) Thanks for nothing MADD.
My question is, why does the “something to make it interesting” have to be alcohol? How about cards, TV, rented movies, video games, computer games, music, touch football in the yard, basketball in the driveway, etc.
Anyone who thinks they need alcohol to make things interesting is going into a bar to get said alcohol. That’s why the practice you describe was stopped, and it is a policy change I whole-heartedly agree with. Why put people who cannot legally buy alcohol into a situation in which they are actively encouraged to want it? It smacks of hypocrisy to me.
Those were all things you (the collective “you”) did when you were in high school. It may not be logical, and it may not be mature, but when you get out of high school, you want to do something different. You want to make a transistion, not protract your high school experience for another three years.
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Listening to a live band is more interesting than renting videos and the other things you said. Meeting people you didn’t go to school with is more interesting. Staying out past your HS curfew is interesting. It is possible to be satisfied with those activities, without alcohol. In Santa Fe, I used to go to a dance club that was 18/21, and I had a blast perfectly sober: I was out and about, and that was way important to me.
Specifically, I was ticked off that I didn’t get to hear Rusted Root when they were still a local band, because I was under 21 at the time. I knew people who had seen them perform live, and it burned me to hear about this band that everyone said was going to be famous (well, they’re not famous, but they did get a contract) and know that I couldn’t see them. I also lost the chance to see established performers that were touring during that time.
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Again I say, there are ways to get alcohol without going to a club; in fact it’s easier, if you know which strings to pull. But when you’re out of high school, you want to get out of the playpen.
Go to Disneyworld.
Seriously, all clubs at Walt Disney World’s Pleasure Island entertainment complex are 18 to enter, 21 to drink. Enforcement isn’t really an issue; you pay one admission fee to the whole complex and the cashier checks your ID. If you’re 21, you get a wristband of Color A; if you’re under 21, you get Color B (the colors change each night, you see). So when you buy a drink, the bartender just looks at your wrist. No checking and re-checking ID over and over again.
I don’t know if the same policy holds throughout the rest of Florida.
DISCLAIMER: There is one exception to Pleasure Island’s 18/22 policy. At a club called Mannequin’s, you have to be 21 to enter.
As of two years ago, there were several nightclubs in Philadelphia with an 18/21 rule. Considering that Philly has more institutes of higher education than any other city in the country, it’s probably more profitable there than most places.
Some clubs will let you in if you’re 18. I’ve been to a few. What generally happens is that they draw something on the back of both of your hands in permanant marker to signify that you’re underage.
Nothing like walking around with two smiley faces on your hands for a few days…
Back when I went to college in Charleston, Illinois they had a 19/21 rule. Which never worked. Basically all it did was change the local drinking age to 19 for all practical purposes. Eventually the locals got tired of it and elected a mayor largely on the platform of abolishing the 19/21 rule and making bar entry illegal under 21. Anyway, while in a large city (or suburb thereof) you might be able to find such a place, I imagine in most areas it’s easier to just say “21 or over” than to enforce a 19/21 entry age and have to deal with people trying to twist the system; all 19/21 does is mean you have to card (or otherwise check) people twice, once at the door and once at the bar instead of just checking them at the door and getting it over with. In a crowded bar, I’m sure the bartender has better things to do than worry about who has a smiley face on their hand or making sure that second beer you bought it going to someone 21 or over and not the 20 year old who came in the door with you.
Most of the nightclubs with live music that I go to in NC and VA have an 18/21 rule and some have “all ages” shows, where I think the lower cutoff age is 12, if there is a cutoff at all. Yep, that’s right. 12.
This means that at all ages shows the club usually tries to keep the drinkers in a separate area from the nondrinkers, with a security person there at the “border” to check hand stamps/wristbands. Over 21s get a wristband or distinctive stamp on one hand; underage patrons get either the two big X’s or another distinctive stamp on both hands.
Twister’s in Richmond, VA is notorious for this. People can only stand within arm’s reach of the bar if they are drinking alcohol, and no cups are allowed in the bathroom due to the huge numbers of young teens running about the place. Jaxx in Springfield, VA has a dedicated bar open for over 21s only during all-ages shows. If it’s an 18+ show, then the over 21s are free to take their drinks anywhere in the club. And in NC, some places such as King’s in Raleigh serve beer only and do the handstamp thing with no segregation of people. The places that do serve hard liquor often have a “21+ members only” room and no alcohol can be taken from it. (for example, Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem)
Sorry for the overlong reply, but I go to these places several times a month and so am used to being at the same nightclub shows with really underage patrons.
I have gone to maney all ages to enter/21+ to drink clubs. They usually give the twenty one year olds a wristband or handstamp, and often they have a roped off area or another room for alcohol. These places also serve minimal food (which no-one buys) so that they can continue to be all ages.
A lot of these clubs have come under attack lately. I think it is the stupidist thing in the world. Many cities have made it so there is effectively nothing to do and nowhere to go if you are under twenty-one. That only leads to increased boredom induced crime and drug use, and whenever there is events for all ages they end up being near riots because the kids are so starved to something to do besides sit around the house and smoke pot. If cities really wanted to cut down on youth crime they would encourage all ages clubs, pool joints, bowling alleys and concerts.
There are plenty of clubs in Boston that are 18,19 to enter, 21 to drink (Axis and The Palace in Saugus, MA come to mind).
I also think you are overstating the benefits of the 18/21 club to society. Society won’t stand or fall based on whether some kids have to wait a couple of years to bounce around with glowsticks to Moby.
My take on the whole 18/21 club:
It was great when I was in college. We would go to this one particular club every other week or so when we were all home from school. Half the time we would get served even though we were underage. The other half of the time, we could pick a bracelet up off the ground and pretend to be 21. We always met girls and it was a refreshing change from house parties or drinking beers in the park/beach.
Now that I’ve been out of college for a couple of years, I have no desire to hang out with college freshmen. We 20 and 30 something professional types in our Bannana Republic shirts have very little in common with a bunch of kids in white baseball hats and oversized Abercrombie jeans. Not to mention it’s irritating having them come up and ask you to buy beers for them.
I imagine the reason you don’t see too many of these clubs around is that there is a much bigger market of over 21 yr olds than 18-20 year olds. The kids tend to drive the older patrons away and they don’t spend any money on drinks for obvious reasons.