Idiotic Kroger IDing policy

The BBQ Pit
1

Probably shouldn’t make my second thread ever a pit thread, but this happened to me today, and this seemed like the place to bitch about it.

I was hanging out with my dad earlier today, and we stopped at Kroger because he needed a pack of smokes. He only had $3 on him because he’d just paid for lunch, and cigarettes cost anywhere from $2-$5/pack around here, so he borrowed a buck from me. When we got to the Customer Service counter (which is where you have to buy the cigarettes; you can’t buy them with the rest of your groceries and the cashiers won’t go get them for you at the register), the total for the smokes only came to $2.71, so my dad handed me back my dollar…at which point the asshat store manager (who was, amazingly enough, actually manning the CS counter) grabs back the pack of cigarettes and asks to see my ID. Naturally, I asked him why this was necessary. He responded that “since you exchanged money right in front of us, we’re required to check your ID”.

Now, I’m 20 years old, and I have a valid driver’s license, so I showed him that and everything was fine. But what I want to know is, had I been underaged, would the store manager have refused to sell my father (who is 43) a pack of cigarettes that are perfectly legal to sell to somebody half his age? The implication was certainly that they would. And despite my usually passive attitude, I’m afraid I would’ve had an issue with that, as would my father, I’m sure.

I can almost understand enforcing such a policy had I handed money to my father, thus indicating that I was in fact buying the cigarettes using him as a go-between (although idealistically, I would still hold that if an adult chooses to buy cigarettes for a kid, the store should have no say in that, since whatever the adult does with his own smokes is his responsibility). But it was my dad handing ME a dollar. What possible heinous scheme did the manager think we had concocted? The only thing I can think of is that we were smart enough to initially exchange money outside the store, but then too dumb to remember to do the same with the change. Not to mention that, if he were actually buying cigarettes for me illicitly, I would most likely have waited outside in the first place.

Oh, and incidentally, I know for sure that this wasn’t a fluke. My dad was buying beer one night at a different Kroger, and the cashier carded his friend who just happened to be checking out behind him at the U-Scan. His friend didn’t have ID on him, but they let my dad buy the beer anyway (in which case, why bother to pretend to enforce the policy, but whatever).

What the hell kind of policy is this anyway? If somebody is of legal age to purchase alcohol or tobacco, what fucking business is it of Kroger’s who happens to be with him/her at the time? Under this policy, a mother doing her weekly shopping with kids in tow wouldn’t be allowed to buy cooking sherry for the evening’s dinner (since apparently, as shown in the second example, the transfer of money is not actually required to trigger the rule). I’m glad my dad was buying smokes today instead of beer…had they actually refused to sell to him just because I happened to be around, I would’ve been forced to speak my mind. Am I way off base here, or does this seem equally asinine to the rest of you Dopers?

2

This same damn thing happened to me a while back!!! I was with a friend who was buying beer and they asked for my ID as well! I was shocked and outraged! (as evidenced by all these exclamation points I keep using!)

Of course I was underage at the time, and my friend **was **buying the beer for me…

BUT that’s beside the point! Those evil supermarket fiends! What possible justification could there be for wanting to see if I was old enough too?

Damn you Kroger!

  • Peter Wiggen :mad:
3

I dont know the bylaw policys that are enforced by your state , but up in ontario , the smoke nazis on the bylaw enforcement side are allowed to entrap people who may unknowingly sell tobbacco products to minors.

Generally some kids will stroll into a targetted store , view the compliance with the law , or purchase the smokes , wander out , and seconds later herr bylaw enforcement officer will stop by and issue a ticket or a summons.

Its probable that the krogers management was acting in defense of such a situation. While you are 20 as mentioned , some stores I have seen either have 25 as the cutoff for being carded , or if you look young enough to warrant being carded.

Its kinda funny in a way to watch a 40 yr old woman get carded for smokes, she was only half miffed.

Declan

4

Considering that this is JUST the kind of setup a sting operation would use, I’d say that any manager who wanted to keep his store open and unfined would ask for ID. Whether you like the law or not, the store HAS to follow that law, or be fined. When I was working at a convenience store, we were told that if we were busted selling booze or tobacco to underage customers, state law fined the clerks ($500 around 1980) as well as the store, the store would NOT pay the clerk’s fine, and the clerk was likely to get fired as well as fined.

Newspapers and TV stations LOVE to try to run stings on stores when the news is slow. It makes for nice splashy headlines, takes very little to set up, and they can milk the story for a while.

5

Sarcasm duly noted, PeterWiggen. Nonetheless, your friend was old enough to buy the beer. What he chose to do with it after that (i.e. give it to you) would be his responsibility, not the store’s (and to Declan and the three zillion others that I’m sure will tell me this, I’m aware that the law might see things differently depending on location, but that just means that the law is stupid rather than the store; feel free to substitute the appropriate terminology as needed).

BUYING beer for a minor is illegal. SELLING beer to a minor is illegal. But where, outside of civil court (where all manner of perfectly legal actions for some reason seem to require punitive payments), is selling beer to an adult who is buying for a minor illegal? And if this does happen to be the case – and I’d easily believe it; I live in Virginia, home of the stupidest liquor laws in the U.S. – then for God’s sake, why??? Where does the chain of accountability end? And for that matter, what measures are considered sufficient action on the store’s part to prevent this from occurring? Obviously, the store manager in today’s incident felt that my dad giving me a dollar was enough to warrant suspicion. Which is bullshit, but I’ll go with it. But what if no exchange of money had occured? Would the store manager still have been responsible if my dad had handed me the smokes (and I had been underage)? WHY? If the store’s policy is in place to prevent legal action, then the law is stupid. If, like movie ratings, it’s just in place as a smarmy ass “morality-focused self-regulation”, then the store is stupid. Take your pick.

6

I just don’t see the relevance to the OP here. In your case, it involved selling to minors. In the OP, it was the purchasers companion that triggered the ID.

This would be like taking my neice to dinner, having a glass of wine, and having her ID’d because she’s with me. :confused:

I remember in Wisconsin, if you were with a parent or blood relative, you could drink at the age of 12 so long as the custodial party ordered it, and it was served to that person. Then, if the adult passed along the drink to you, no problem. (Oh, good times)

7

See above post on law, rather than store policy, being the culprit. (I realize you said this before I posted it, but it applies nonetheless.)

And aside from that, I personally would laugh at a televised sting operation in which a store clerk was “busted” for not carding a 43-year-old man for cigarettes after he gave his son a dollar.

I suppose the matter hinges on whether or not you believe the dollar was significant. If you think it wasn’t, then you’re saying that the store would be justified in not selling cigarettes or alcohol to anybody who happens to have kids with them at the time. In other words, mommy doesn’t get her Marlboros with her weekly groceries because little Billy wanted to come ride in the cart. If, on the other hand, you believe the buck was the basis for the botheration:

Either way, the manager’s actions were ridiculous, even if they were nothing more than an attempt to cover his ass.

8

Course the law was stupid ,I never said different.

Your state may be different ,but 19 is the age for selling alcohol. But in your own home , its not against the law to provide Alcohol to minors.

Again yeah the law is stupid , but thats what happens when you have soccer moms climbing into bed with parasitic congress critters to enable social engineering.

And again jurisdiction wise , probably only if the store believed that your dad was supplying you with marly reds, up here they can refuse to sell anyone , any product they so desire , if your dad was to buy the smokes up here ,and then turn them over to you , then he is liable for a 4000 dollar fine. In virgininia , you would have to consult your own laws for a similar penalty , but since the insidious folks who cause such hilarity network , you probably do have a similar law in place.
Declan

9

By the way, was this a Kroger’s in Indiana? I remember a few years back I was at the one near Greenfield, IN buying a case. I got to the checkout and a kid working the lane said I had to pass it over the scanner.

Being from WI where it’s practically law that you buy beer when you start shaving, I asked him why. He said he was 19, and since IN is a 21 state, he couldn’t have any interaction with the sale of alcohol. Yet, he was able to take the money, ring it in, and hand me change and receipt. :confused: :confused:

10

Nope, it’s Kroger in good ol’ Virginia…home, as I said, to the dumbest liquor laws on the planet. My personal favorite is the one I’ve always referred to as the “Please Drink And Drive” law. It’s actually a combination of two laws:

  1. It’s illegal for a grocery or convenience store to sell alcohol after midnight.

  2. Bars and restaurants that serve alcohol may continue to do so until 2:00 AM.

Want to catch a buzz at 1:00 in the morning? You do the math.

None of this applies to the OP, of course; I’m just mentioning it because it’s dumb and I don’t feel like starting a whole other Pit thread on it.

11

I swear I’ll try to make this the last post to this thread. But I have a dumber law. Hang on, this is freaking hilarious.

In the city of Milwaukee, Mayor John O. Norquist (Dem :wink: ) made it city law that no carry-out alcohol could be sold after 9 p.m. But the bars would still have a closing time of 3 a.m.

The reason? He figured by limiting off-sale to 9 p.m. would help reduce domestic violence. :wally

(Can’t remember the year it was implemented, but it was early '90’s)

12

I saw this happen at a Bi-Lo here in South Carolina a few years ago. It was a man of about 25 purchasing a six-pack. He had a couple girls with him (looked about the same age). Although he was buying the beer, they asked the girls for id. We live in a beach town - they were wearing their bathing suits and didn’t have purses or anything with them. The cashier told them it was a State Law that she couldn’t sell the beer to them because they didn’t all have id.

It really annoyed me. Not so much that the cashier wouldn’t sell the beer to them (although that’s pretty stupid), but that she told them it was a state law. It’s not - I checked when I got home. Why lie? Just say store policy and leave it at that. She made it seem (and pretty loudly) that they were trying to commit a crime.

13

That Kroger discount card sucks. Having to carry around a freakin card to get the sale prices and of course if you don’t have the card, well you tell the cashier you forgot and he uses one he keeps at the register - I/we got enough stuff to keep up with besides a freakin grocery card. IMO.

14

If they admit it’s store policy and not state law, they may have to put up with more argument from the customer. Your average customer may try pretty hard to get the cahier to violate store policy. State law, not so much.

15

This happens at my Kroger store all the time, since they’ve got one (female) checker who is under 21. Every time someone’s buying beer in her lane, she has to call the manager over to run the register. The reason I know this is because I seem to end up standing in line behind this guy every time. :smiley:

This depends totally on which Kroger store you go to: Here in Decatur, the Brettwood Kroger will swipe the cashier’s card for you, but the Fairview Kroger most emphatically will not, plus they give you a dirty look if you ask them to. Every time. I have no idea what must have happened to get them so unsold on the idea of swiping the card for a customer.

But, looooove getting those cut-rate prices, uh huh. I put up with the card in return for getting boneless pork loin at $1.77 a pound, oh yeah. :smiley:

16

Links to two previous threads that discuss this topic:

Businesses you’ll never patronize again – and why
“Second-party” alcohol sales

17

I’m not sure if this is a state to state thing, but here in NY, there are signs that you will be carded if you look under 40. For alcohol AND cigarettes. Seems like a stretch, but it’s really not THAT big of a nuisance, IMO.

I rue the day they stop asking me for ID. Ack!!

18

I guess I’m not sure what exactly the sting operation would be able to claim they found? The store was following the law.

The store must follow the law and not sell to underage people. The adults must follow the law and not procure alcohol or cigarettes for underage people. The underage people must follow the law and not use cigarettes or alcohol. It is far outside the scope of the store’s responsibility to prevent underage people from drinking.

I think stores should make a good-faith effort to avoid obvious end-runs around the drinking and smoking age laws, but that doesn’t mean they should be trying to figure out if each customer is trying to break the law, and to try to stop him from doing it. In other words, if the cashier has good reason to believe that the alcohol or cigarettes are being purchased by the adult for the purpose of providing it to a minor, like having observed them making the arrangements, then he or she should certainly refuse to sell it. But for a cashier (or store manager) to make assumptions about the purchaser and his or her companions and their intentions is offensive and ridiculous.

19

It is a stupid law. If an adult, who is considered old enough to buy beer, buy cigarettes, vote, drive a car, enter into legal and binding contracts, etc., etc., etc. gives beer to someone who is under-age, then that person has chosen to do something illegal and they should be prosecuted for it. It’s ridiculous that retailers are expected to police the behavior of other citizens.

My friend is a grocery cashier, and she has to refuse to sell beer all the time to people who come into the store with underage friends. She can’t sell to them if they bring their friends through the checkout–she can’t even sell to them if they have had any interaction with their friends in the store.

If she gets caught selling to someone who is in a party containing minors (most likely in a sting), the store gets slapped with a huge fine and she, naturally, will lose her job.

I realize that from a practical point of view, it is very difficult to catch people giving beer to people who are underage and it’s much easier to prevent beer from being sold to people who clearly intend to give the beer to underage drinkers.

But on the other hand, once again from a partictical point of view, if a group of people get refused, all they have to do is drive to the next store (which is one entire block away) and this time leave their underage friends in the freakin’ car.

20

If it is, in fact, illegal to sell to people who are in the store with minors, then I stand corrected.

But I’d really like to know how they deal with people who come in with their children. Of course, it’s kind of a straw-man thing to ask if they’d refuse to sell me beer if I had my two year old with me, but what about older children. What about other family members? Where do they draw the line?

Imagine this scenario:

21 year old John is home from college on break. He wants to use the car. Mom says sure, but you have to pick up Mary (17 year old sister) from work. John says sure. Mom calls John on his cellphone and asks John to get some milk at the supermarket on the way home. John picks up Mary and they go into the supermarket to get the milk. While he’s there, John decides to pick up a 6-pack of beer to drink with his buddies later on that night.

Would the store refuse to sell the beer to John?
What if they show the store proof that they are sister and brother?
What if someone who knows the family is there and confirms that the last thing that Mary wants to do is hang out with her dorky brother and dorkier friends?
What if Mom drives over. Would they let her purchase the beer for John?

(I mean those questions seriously. I tried to make it a reasonable scenario.)