I don’t know what security measure this is but I found out recently in person that in California if your Drivers License is expired you can’t buy alcohol with it, and the clerk will tell you even if you come back with valid ID they aren’t allowed to sell you alcohol at that location for a few hours. This happened twice to me last month when my license expired and I was waiting for a new one to be sent in.
So you’re telling me an official State Government ID with my birth date on it suddenly doesn’t become valid as proof of birth just because the license itself is expired? And how now I’m basically blacklisted from buying alcohol for 24 hours?
When I first got my driver’s license, in Wisconsin in 1981, it did not feature a photograph – at that time, Wisconsin’s driver’s licenses were just a paper ID card, with name, address, birthdate, and ID number. Wisconsin had a separate “photo ID card” which they issued, which one could get once one turned 18 (the legal drinking age in the state at the time), in order to show a photo ID to get into bars.
By the time I got my first renewal of my driver’s license, in 1984, they had finally started issuing licenses with photographs. (I still have that license, and wow, I had a lot of hair when I was 19…)
The first time I moved to Hawaii was for graduate school in 1991. I was living in Albuquerque, and while I flew one-way to Los Angeles, I did what was fairly common back then and bought a round-trip ticket from LA to Honolulu, then advertised the return ticket for sale. A German tourist answered my ad and bought it. By chance, my surname is Germanic, making it just that much more believable he was me. They didn’t really check IDs back then, at least not for domestic flights.
Doesn’t surprise me. When I was in California in my early 20s I never imagined that buying a case of beer could be a problem, since by that time I had been buying liquor and ordering drinks in bars and restaurants for at least a few years. Imagine my surprise when a rude clerk refused to let me buy it, because I didn’t have a California driver’s license. Of course I didn’t, I didn’t freaking live in California! But my government-issued driver’s license with photo ID was deemed no good. Sure, it would let me drive in California, but not buy a case of beer!
My solution was to walk across the street and buy the beer there.
Another example. Back in the 1970s, when I was 16, the drinking age in Texas was 18. I looked older than my age and knew which stores I could buy beer from without being carded. But at one point I signed up for some jicky mail-order locksmith course, because they supplied a “student ID” that I filled out myself and had laminated including my age, which I pushed up a couple years. It never failed to get me into the few bars that carded me. Not even a space for a photo.
Somewhat similarly, wolfpup, when I was 40, my (now ex) wife and I vacationed in Colorado. We were living in southern Ontario at the time.
We managed to get tickets to see the Denver Broncos play at the old Mile-High Stadium. She liked football as much as I did, so it was a special treat for both of us. We found our seats, and I went to get us a couple of beers.
The beer stand had a “card everybody” policy, which is fine. I produced my Ontario driver’s license (this was long before Canadians needed a passport to go to the US; otherwise I would have been carrying that). And remember, I was 40 at the time–neither I, nor the picture on my license, looked like a questionable kid trying to score some suds. The young lady running the beer stand looked at it, and said, “I don’t know if I can accept this.”
“Why not?”
“Well, what is–where is–‘Ontario’?”
Thankfully, her manager or supervisor had studied geography, and assured her that Ontario was a real place, a Canadian province, and its driver’s licenses were perfectly acceptable as ID for buying beer.
In 1963, the 47-floor Place Ville Marie was the tallest building in Montreal. One Sunday, we decided to take a sightseeing trip to the top and have a look around. Thr tourist elevator was charging 50c for the ride, so we took the stairwell. At the end of the stairs, we opened the door expecting a landing. But there, displayed before eyes was the spacious and silent world headquarters of Air Canada – a sea of desks with pictures of grandchildren on them. We could have gone to the waste basket next to the telex machine and sent a prank reply to Lufthansa.
We quickly got out of there and started walking down, got to the open door to the 45th floor, rang for the elevator, and came face to face with the same smiling tour guide, who took us, free, up the remaining two flights.
True, all the flights I can recall this happening on were Air Canada flights. But at least two of them were international, between Canada and the US, with most of the flight over US territory. And it was mid-90s. So I assume the clampdown on cockpit visits was airline policy and not FAA rules.
I remember with particular fondness one such flight, from Toronto to New York, because I think it was my son’s very first flight (roughly circa 1995). Also because we were flying free in business class (on points) and there were very few passengers in business class. The flight attendants had an easy time of it and were in a great mood and treated us like royalty. When my son asked to visit the cockpit, one of the FAs arranged it as soon as the flight was at cruise altitude. Later on she came back and insisted that I absolutely must go up and see him, because it was so adorable. I went up and the door to the cockpit was standing open, with my son comfortably sitting on the floor behind the center pedestal between the two pilots, casually asking questions about stuff. The FO turned around to see who this new intruder into the cockpit was, and I told him I was his father, and really appreciated them letting him sit up there. He replied, “He’s a good boy.” When I think back to that today, I think, wow, what a totally different world we live in!
ETA: No souvenirs for him on that cockpit visit, but the memories were the real souvenirs. It was probably the most memorably pleasant flight I’ve ever been on. I think it was an Airbus A320.
Reminds me of the last time I was in Pennsylvania and wanted to buy medicine with pseudoephedrine in it, which needs proper identification (link). The person behind the pharmacy counter didn’t know what to do with a passport as they had only been trained to work with Pennsylvania driver’s licenses.
I flew a couple of times before 9/11; both times I forgot my Swiss Army knife was in my carry-on. The folks working Washington National were a bit concerned but let me board anyway; the ones working my return trips from Texas didn’t bat an eye.
Airline security came pretty early on. On an Aer Lingus flight to Canada in 1968, we were all waiting at the departure gate, and the FA said the screeners were late, we had to quickly board without being screened.
Two years later on TAP (Transhpoorchesh Aeroosh Poorchuguezhesh), the FA with a lovely accent held my Swiss Army Knife, and handed it back on arrival.
The first time I dealt with this (buying Sudafed for my gf), after all the ID checking and paperwork completion, I took the bag and said, “after all that work I might as well make some meth”. Got a nasty glare from the cashier.
I worked security for a while- mind-numbingly boring most of the time, but I did get to see some fun security flaws. One place I regularly worked at, which shall remain nameless for obvious reasons, was supposed to be really tight; controlled access doors in both directions for everything but the bathrooms- with the aforementioned rule about not holding doors of course. There was a strict phone/camera ban in much of the building, especially the multiple restricted areas where classified research for companies you have heard of took place. Some really cool stuff, and serious money involved.
The company I was working for had initially been hired just to patrol the parking area, as some local kids had discovered that a large area of it was not covered by the cameras and kept doing stuff like building skate ramps, causing a bit of a nuisance. Over time this got extended, and we started being asked to check everyone had gone home and do internal lockup, plus occasionally we’d be asked to stay on site if a staff member was pulling an all-nighter, at least until they left.
At no point did they ask for any information regarding who I was, or to see any identification. I showed up, I had a black jacket and a hi-vis. I had a badge, but it stayed in my pocket, or the car. I went round there regularly for months accompanied only by a good- natured teenager (apparently he had been asked for ID when he was initially given a tour) and an all-areas pass, with no-one else around, having been told where the CCTV dead spots were. Qui custodiet custard, eh?
That wasn’t the best security flaw though; the heart of the place was a huge workshop area, of course with only doors that needed a card to enter or exit… except one. I discovered this one day when they had contractors on site, setting up for some new project- all the staff left, leaving the contractors in the workshop without a pass. The only door they could open from the inside without a card were the HUGE doors designed to drive a truck through, which had no controls on the outside, so I got there a bit early for my shift to find no-one on site, and the HUGE doors open right from the freaking CCTV dead spot in the parking area to the workshop…
Back in the mid-70s, I flew into Heathrow. there were a couple of rather scruffy young men on the flight who had guitar cases as hand luggage and I followed them through customs.
I assume that the security guy asked one of them what was in the guitar case because I heard him say “a machine gun” and pretend to shoot people. (The Godfather was a big hit at the time).
Seconds later the two guys were being frogmarched away by some serious looking people with guns. No fuss, I bet most people around didn’t even notice as they vanished into the back of the customs hall.
I remember in the 1980s or so that there were signs in the airport not to even joke about having a bomb in your luggage. It sounds like those guys didn’t see those signs, or perhaps this was before the signs were posted.
My friend and I visited Washington DC in 1997. We were walking around the city and at one point I turned to my right and I realized I was looking at a wide open side door leading into the White House. There was no one around that we could see and we could look straight down the hallway (it looked kind of like a hotel hallway to me with patterned carpeting and rows of doors on either side). I am sure we would not have gotten far but as best as I could tell we could have just walked a few feet and started wandering around the White House.
When I was in college in Boston in the early '70s the Eastern shuttle to La Guardia let you buy a ticket on board, so nearly everyone didn’t have a ticket when boarding. In December 1970 I smuggled my hamster in my camera case on a flight to Texas - no one checked.
Security only started after the hijackings to Cuba in 1974 or so.
In the last 1950s when my great Aunt was going to England on the SS United States we got to go on board with her, right to her cabin, and left the ship right before departure. Now boarding a ship has about as much security as boarding a plane.
I was in Denver airport, well after 9/11, someone left their HUGE bag under the sink in the women’s restroom. I contracted security. They said something like so?
