What trouble? I go to the DMV website, order a duplicate, and tell my sister to give me the 17.50 fee.
BTW, I know someone who has more than once gotten on a plane using an expired non-drivers ID - and the TSA agents told him to renew when he got home, so it’s not that they didn’t notice. And oddly, as long as the license is expired for less than 2 years, the DMV will accept it as enough proof for renewing that expired license, no other proof needed. (after 2 years you have to start over, with written and road tests etc) tests Which is why this is bizzare- the bar won’t accept my license that expired 2 months ago to sell me a drink, but DMV will issue me a new license without requiring any ID other than the expired one.
I had state ID card when I first moved to Ca. and the card had expired . I went
to use it at a store and the woman wouldn’t get it she said it has expired .
I told her but I am still me , I didn’t expired ! She didn’t like my answer. It’s a way for the city and state to make $$$ . I agree the card still has the correct info
on it so what the big deal about is being expired . I also asked for a mirror to see if I was still me . LOL!
No, the license plate one is because of the 3M company, not the government. 3M sells the reflective coating that is used on license plate numbers, so they want to require them to be replaced on a regular basis. The government doesn’t care that much – paying the government employees to hand out new ones is probably a net money-loser for the government.
i remember a big fight about this in the Legislature here in Minnesota some years ago.
Previously license plates were forever, as long as they were “legible”. So you only had to replace them if they were damaged in accidents, or were so old the printing wore out. Occasionally, police would stop someone for an unreadable license plate, and give them a 10-day fix-it warning ticket.
Then a bill was introduced, requiring that the plates be replaced every year. Turned out that bill was inspired by a lot of campaign contributions from 3M company executives. Who wanted to sell more of their reflective coating for license plates. It was claimed this was a public safety issue, but the police & state patrol officials said they had no problems with the current law – it worked fine for them. Some elected sheriffs testified that it was a problem – they turned out to have received some campaign contributions of their own.
But 3M has a whole lot of employees & retirees in Minnesota, who are voters. So the Legislature ended up passing a bill requiring people to buy new license plates every 3 years. So now we have to replace perfectly good plates every 3 years. And corporate profits for 3M have gone up. Democracy in action.
Seems odd America has a de facto official** ID Card** in the driving licence.
Just like the internal passports of the old USSR.
I work as a sales clerk in a convenience store, and as I often tell my customers, “I agree the law is stupid. Please write your Congressman.”
For cigarettes, Federal Law requires that the clerk see a photo ID if the customer is 27 or younger. (Many clerks will break this law for a regular customer, but the law says the need to see it every single time.) It also defines what counts as a valid ID under the law, which includes that it must have been issued by a state government or the Federal Government, and that it must have an expiration date. And of course, on the expiration date it stops being “valid” for any purpose.
Alcohol is handled state-by-state, but in the interests of a uniform system most stores will use the cigarette rules for everything (unless alcohol has stricter rules, in which case they use those). And they set the minimum age for “we ID anyone who looks younger than ___” high enough that they won’t miss a 27-year-old narc who happens to look older than he is.
Yes, the government really does send 27-year-olds around to check if stores are complying with the law.
I do think there needs to be some uniformity in ID laws. I have a student ID I got 28 years ago that, because it doesn’t have an expiration date, is totally valid as a photo ID to prove my identity, and my birth certificate proves my right to work in the US. Those 2 things together satisfy the IRS when I’m being hired for a job, but neither one is of any use if I am buying tobacco.
When shopping online, the Federal standard is that paying with a credit card is proof I’m over 18, but again that isn’t true if I am buying in person.
I have several customers each year who have one of the following problems with ID:
They have an expired license and a letter from the DMV saying their new ID is in the mail: totally valid to drive, not to buy cigarettes.
They have a letter saying a police officer confiscated their license. The DMV won’t issue both an ID card and a license, so there is no way to have a valid ID between when the cop takes it and when the DMV opens.
They have a piece of paper with a printout on it that includes their photo. This is the “ID” they give you when releasing you from prison. Good luck using that for anything at all.
They have a foreign passport. I have never seen a US Government issued photo ID for a non-resident alien (read: tourist), so I assume they don’t exist. Which means such people cannot buy tobacco products, because the only photo ID they carry was not issued by the US or any of the states. The folks with foreign passports I see are college age and in town for the summer, and get around on bicycles (so no driver’s license).
But I guess all the smokers in Congress have a valid ID, so they don’t see the problem.
When I moved to Virginia (20+ years ago), I had to present 2 forms of ID when applying for a Virginia License. I used my student ID and my Connecticut license. The clerk attacked these to the paperwork with a paperclip.
When she was handing me my new license, she was distracted, having a conversation with a co-worker, and forgot to return my student ID. So I asked, "Could I get my student ID back?’, and she handed it to me. I thought for about half a second and decided to roll the dice: “And my Connecticut License?” She just handed it to me.
I wound up giving it to my roommate so he could get into bars (I was 22, he was 20.)
When I needed to renew my license, they collected my old one.
But about a decade ago, Virginia changed a lot of laws about licenses. Now the DMV just gives you a letter saying you’ll get your license in the mail. Because of this, they let you keep your old license so you have an ID until the new one arrives. (IIRC the letter says that your old license is only valid until the new one arrives, to prevent folks who renew early from briefly having 2 valid IDs.)
I want to thank you for being a real jerk about my complying with the law.
See my above comment about writing your Congressman: if you have a problem with what the law (or even store policy) considers a valid ID, the clerk is not the place to address your concerns. He has no power to change laws or policy, but can lose his job if he doesn’t comply with them.
I have been known to bend the rules for someone when I feel I can, but anyone who acts like I am so beneath them that they;d say something like “When they leave their little job, they go out into the real world and their little lives and are not the boss of anyone in real life.”, well that person is getting no favors from me.
Especially if they can’t handle simple things like having a valid ID.
(I had no ID for several years: my license was suspended and I had trouble getting to the DMV. And I knew that meant I couldn’t produce a valid ID, and I knew that was my fault, and I would never blame a clerk for refusing to sell to me.)
What, an obviously grown adult, wanting to buy booze without your correctly filled out, valid, ausweis! Clearly you are some kind of subversive troublemaker. Best move along there citizen before the Ordnungspolizei are called!
This does not sound correct - and from a couple of quick checks online (NY,IL, MA), it looks like a valid passport from any country would be sufficient.
Do you have a cite that only US passports are valid for tobacco purchases?
Not really true. Another thing that’s changed is the accessibility of technology used to create fake IDs.
States use license expiration to issue new cards with enhanced security measures–UV ink, holograms, etc. The shitty laminated deals from decades ago are trivially faked; the ones today less so.
It’s an arms race, and the state can only keep ahead if old licenses become invalid over time.
Even worse than that… back in the 70’s, just before I dropped out of college… I had never had a valid car driver license. I drove downtown Toronto with a learners’ permit, all that was needed for a moped. Then they changed the rules so you could not keep renewing learners’ permits, and issued a special license for moped users - essentially, just the written test like a learners’.
Just before I dropped out of college, I bought a motorcycle and got a motorcycle license. The Ontario moped permit looked just like a car license (same form) so when I surrendered my license after the bike test to get the temporary motorcycle licenses, they guy just assumed I had a car license and gave me “car and motorcycle” on the hand-written temp form. When I got out west, I turned that in and got a valid car and motorcycle license from that province based on the temp, despite never having driven a car. My official license forwarded to me from Ontario followed soon, and the error had been corrected.
But when I got back to Ontario and finished college, Ontario accepted my Alberta drivers license. Now I have had an auto license and been driving for 40 years, despite never having taken a driver’s test in an automobile.
The irony is the same happened to my brother a few years later when he switched provinces.
I assume with today’s fancy computer systems this sort of thing would never happen.
First, it’s not a law but an FDA regulation. And unless the state requires a US government or state ID, the regulation only states that it must be a photo ID with a date of birth and not expired. Under this standard a university ID would be legally acceptable. It sounds like a store policy thing rather than a regulation.
I can’t actually find a cite for any of the FDA regulations since they took control of tobacco in 2009. (Their website is a bit arcane, and the search isn’t helpful.)
I can’t say I’m 100% certain the “no foreign passports” came from them; it is a change I noticed in our corporate training materials a few years ago. In contrast, the “ID under 27” is something I am 100% certain comes from the FDA, even though I can’t find a cite for it online.
The New York document you linked dates from 2006, before the FDA took over, the Illinois one pertains only to alcohol (which as I’ve said is handled by state, not at the federal level), and the Massachusetts one … well, I can’t find a date on it, but it only covers what is required by Massachusetts law.
ETA: I found this: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/TobaccoProducts/Labeling/RulesRegulationsGuidance/UCM248241.pdf
On page 13 it says it only requires a “photo ID that shows date of birth”. On page 15 it says that was intentionally not specified, but says the most “reliable” kinds are issued by “national governments” and gives passports as an example.
So my company’s refusal of foreign passports is either just them erring on the side of caution to a stupid degree, or perhaps trying to have a uniform training program in all stores, and in one of the states they operate in foreign passports are not valid. either way it’s dumb, and I am now a lot happier about breaking that rule. (Since I know that what I’m breaking is a rule, not a law.)
In the USA I was refused being able to buy alcohol or cigs numerous times with a valid US passport, once I was told I needed ID issued by a government.:eek: And asked how long I had lived in the US:confused:
I have had to get the managers down to the clerk to get a passport accepted as ID. So far, those managers were a bit better trained than those particular clerks.
I was never in a big hurry so I had fun with it.
Eye scanning is coming and those with no eyes are in for a lot of hassles.