If You Had a Job that Required You to ID People?

In My Humble Opinion
1

If you had (or have) a job that requires you to ask people for ID (for proof of age), like say at a liqour store, which situation would you prefer:

[ul]
[li]The Boss requires you to card every customer, every purchase, every time, no exceptions. This requirement is posted on the door so customers know to expect it. If it’s someone who’s been shopping at your store every day for a hundred years, and their age still hasn’t gone down, you card them. If they come in with using a walker and an ostomy bag, you card them. If it’s someone you know from back in The Day and you know they’re over 21, you card them. If it’s your mom, you card her. If it’s your state’s governor, you card him. Every customer, every purchase, every time, no exceptions.[/li][li]The Boss allows you to use your discretion and only makes you card people who appear to be under the age of [insert your jurisdiction’s cutoff age here; in Sangamon County, Illinois it’s 27].[/li][/ul]

I think the first situation has the advantage of taking away any margain for error, and removes any ambiguity about who gets carded (thereby discouraging underage customers from trying sneak past you), but it could inconvenience the customers and drive away business.

The second situation is more convenient for the customers, but it leaves the store open to stings by law enforcement, and it puts the employees in a somewhat difficult position, especially if the customer gets snarky or belligerent about having to show ID.

I’ve worked under both conditions. In college I worked at a hotel and would from time to time be sent to the bar to help out the bouncers. When I was on door duty, I had to card every customer, every time, no exceptions. Some people huffed and puffed but we were never short on customers.

I also worked at a drug store (that sold liquor) where I had to use my discretion, and I thought it sucked ass. I’d ask someone for ID and they’d get all whiny about it and I’d have to try to sweet talk them into it. At the bar I could just show them the door if they didn’t produce ID, but at the drug store I was expected to be nice to the customers and didn’t have the option of showing them the door unless they got too abusive (again, using my discretion).

So, yeah, I much prefer the first option.

How about the rest of you?

2

I think I’d prefer the first option, for one main reason: the idiots who will rant and rave that I’m being unfair just because they “forgot” their ID will have no point, because I can just point to the sign and smile.

3

I think I’d prefer the first. As you say, it covers your ass better. Plus, you’ll always find some people who don’t realize you card everyone who are flattered they “got carded 'cause they look so young!” (That’s what they’ll tell their friends, anyway!) Others you can make it a roll-eye in-joke: “I know it’s crazy, but you know what a nut that boss o’ mine is! I gotta card my own grandmother around here!”

The only place I worked that involved carding was reverse-carding: it was a teen dance club, and we had to keep out anyone *over *the age of 19. What a headache! All, and I mean ALL of these girls looked 30. So I checked them all. And wow, could they be bitchy! We paid an off-duty cop to come in in uniform and stand behind the ID checker, because these kids had no respect for anyone not openly carrying a gun.
Ohmigod, did I just say “these kids”? I must get myself to the geezer thread.

4

Maybe a combination of the two? You could have the posted policy of your first example (or something written a bit looser), but give a break to regular customers and the obviously old.

5

Does being “nice to the customers” include selling them liquor with no ID? If they do not have ID, they do not get Liquor. That’s not store policy, it’s the law.

I work in CA, at a convenience store that sells beer and tobacco. Our store policy on both is to ID anyone who looks under 40. I don’t, I ID anyone who looks remotely close to about 27. But by state law (so I’ve been told), once I ask for ID, I cannot legally sell age-restricted materials unless the ID is produced. Also, I like to commiserate with the customer - “I know it’s stupid, and I’m sure you’re old enough, but it’s corporate policy and state law, blah blah blah…” It helps deflect anger away from me and toward a nebulous “them.”

Also, if you were a 65-year-old regular customer, would you come back to a store that carded you every time? I wouldn’t.

G

6

I’d prefer policy one, because I’m a terrible judge of age. I think everyone looks like they’re in their early 30s.

If I were a senior citizen I wouldn’t have a problem continuing to shop somewhere that carded me every time. I have to get my wallet out anyway to pay; it’s not that big a deal to pull out a license at the same time.

7

I used to work at Suncoast, where we didn’t usually card but were supposed to keep the kids away from the porn, and the quasi-rule was no adult materials under 17. I don’t think it was the law (no hardcore), and there was never really a clear policy even though we asked for one, so we had to sort of use our own discretion. Anyway, I got accused a few times of carding people in a discriminatory manner - “But you let that white guy buy it!” The embarassing truth was, I’m a bad judge of age in general but I can tell a white kid’s age much better than, say, a black kid or an Asian kid. For some reason I have a hard time determining ages in certain ethnic groups - not because I think the black kids were trying to scam me out of my Girls Gone Wild, but because I just couldn’t tell!

Anyway, I’d far prefer #1, but at any rate I wouldn’t mind so much as long as the policy was clear. I’ve never understood why people get all upset about being carded - waiters are always so apologetic about it. Why? If I forgot my ID, I don’t get to drink - it’s the law, whether I’m 19 or 90. And I know I do look younger than I am, and this is a college town. Card proudly. :slight_smile:

8

I worked in a number of beer stores in Ontario (each was part of a province-wide chain, and I moved around as needed among the stores) where this was the situation. The difference was, that at the time, we didn’t have a cutoff age; we just carded as we saw fit. I believe the cutoff age in Ontario is now 25 (note that the drinking age is 19 in Ontario).

Anyway, our chain’s policy had an interesting twist: every time we challenged a customer, we had to write it down in a log. This was not as onerous as it sounds; we simply wrote down the date, time, the ID produced (driver’s licence, passport, military, etc.), and whether or not we sold the product to the customer. The log was kept right by the cash register.

What this allowed us to do was to gather statistics from all the stores in the chain. If, by chance, somebody did sell beer to a minor, and the minor was caught with it, our chain’s lawyers could and did use the chain-wide logs to demonstrate that out of (say) 50,000 challenges across the province that day, we missed the older-looking kid who was challenged but had a really professional fake ID.

The system worked; I don’t recall that in the five or six years that I worked for that chain, we were ever convicted of knowingly selling to minors.

9

I’m 21 but quite short and slim for my age. Still, I hardly ever get asked for ID when I go to the pub/bar (18 is the drinking age here in Britain). The ones that do I’m less likely to go back to.

With the obvious exception of private members’ clubs where you have to have a membership card, I’ve certainly never encountered a drinking establishment that has a policy of asking for every single customer’s ID.

10

When a lot of people pay by Credit Card or ATM Card (especially younger customers), tell them you have to verify identity.

11

I wait tables. I’d prefer the first scenario if (and this is a big, fat if) the rule was consistently enforced by the management/ownership. This very rule, however, is technically in place in bars and restaurants all over town, and I have never – and I pay attention to these things – never seen a 40s-looking person get denied their booze if they got all belligerent about getting carded and demanded to speak to the management. Actually, I take that back; there was one exception…me, as the GM, informing a very cranky 50-ish gentleman that we did not serve anybody without ID.

When thusly enforced, this policy’s chief effect is to (somewhat paradoxically) make the server’s discretionary situation even more ambiguous than in scenario #2. Basically, the rule is now that you’re supposed to card everyone, except of course those people who don’t feel like it, with the exception to that being if the manager might think they don’t actually look 21, unless they get really pissy and the manager on duty isn’t in the mood. Gee, glad we cleared that up.

At the place where I currently work, it’s left to my discretion, and I’m happier that way. If you ain’t a geezer, you get carded, and once I do ask you for ID, I will most absolutely, definitely, and incontrovertibly NOT bring you any alcohol until and unless you show it to me. If you’d like to take it up with the manager, fine, and if he decides to go over my head and serve you, that’s fine too. He can also find somebody else to take the table from that point on…and he can eagerly anticipate a visit from the District Manager, whom I will be calling as soon as possible to inform him of this violation of A) company policy and B) state law. I do not dick around regarding possible criminal charges on my head. All my current managers have been made aware of my stance on this, and though it hasn’t yet been tested, I feel confident that when the time comes, they’ll be backing me up.

So, in final response to your question: really, either way is fine, as long as you’re sufficiently diligent (read: you play hardball) about it, and you know your management is going to back you up.

12

I’ll take the first option. I’m 35, but get asked most of the time when I’m not in a place I go to often. That’s ok with me. I never leave without my ID. However, there is a bar in the Columbus airport which IDs everyone including senior citizens. This is taking it a bit far. I have a friend who is 59 with grey hair. I think that is a bit much to ask him for ID, regardless if he is 45, 55, or 65, he is still well over 21 and can buy alcohol.

13

Every bar (during busy times, anyway) cards every person in my town. College town, lots of 18-25 year olds. It’s not that easy to tell if someone’s 19 or 21. Carding everyone makes it easier.

I would never deny my business to an establishment that is following the letter of the law.

Option 1, all the way.

14

I have never been in a position to have to ID people. And I’m not sure which of the options I prefer. I have thought about both and I think either option leaves the person responsible open for trouble. Either from the State or from beligerent customers.

Some people’s reaction to being IDd is what I don’t get. I am obviously over 21. The times I get carded I could care less. Whip out the license, make a joke about the awful picture, license back in wallet. What’s to get all up in arms about?

15

What kills me is when I ask for an ID, and the person gets really mad - “Are you kidding? I’m obviously old enough, blah blah blah,” and it turns out that they’re 22 or something, just barely of age! Yeah, as soon as you turn 21, you look so much more mature…

G

16

One of the bartenders at my work got fired from his last (much nicer) job because he didn’t card an underaged girl. In his defense, she was supposed to be carded at the door and she was a regular, having been there many, many times before. The only reason he got in trouble was that her dad wanted to get in touch with her that night and couldn’t because she left a fake number. My friend got fined in addition to losing his job. He said that he normally carded the hell out of anyone and slipped that one time, just to be bitch-slapped in the face. I work at a resturant and I card anyone who looked under 50. I have yet to have any complaints. Even if a person is a regular with the other waitstaff, I will still card them the first time I see them.

I’d prefer to just get rid of the drinking age, but I doubt that’ll ever happen.

17

It may just be me, but that’s not how I read HeyHomie’s comment. I read it to say that when he was at the bar, he could just say, “Sorry, no ID no admittance” whereas when he was working at the drug store, he had to turn down the sale much more politely and was subject to more abuse by the people who didn’t like the policy/state laws.

Where I tend bar, house policy is to ID everybody who looks like they are under 30. State law is to ID everybody who looks like they are under 27, so our policy is a little more stringent.

If someone is a regular customer, I don’t ID them every time they come in and I don’t ID someone who is obviously over 40 or so.

On the up-side, management is not permitted to over-ride my decision. If I say no to a sale (whether it be for no ID or I have to cut someone off) management is required to back that up. It is completely left to my discretion, which I like. I serve the customers every day. I know whose ID I have seen and whose I haven’t. If you come in more than two or three times, I likely know your name, your favorite barstool, what you drink and how many drinks you can have before you’re getting a buzz. Management doesn’t.

I usually try to make a joke of it if someone grumbles. I will tell them, “If you are older than me, I’ll buy your first round.” That usually gets a blank stare. Then I say, "I’ll buy your first round if I am less than a decade older than you. That usually gets the IDs on the bar pretty quickly. I don’t buy alot of drinks. sigh…

18

I have. Not so surprisingly, given the information in this thread, it’s always happened while I’ve been travelling in the United States.

Based on my experiences in “everybody gets carded” bars and liquor stores, I have a couple of questions I’d like to throw out for consideration:

– Is there generally a problem with out-of-jurisdiction IDs? I’ve encountered a few instances where the server or clerk wasn’t sure if they could accept my Alberta (and previously, Ontario) driver’s licence, because it was both from out-of-state and from out-of-the-USA. Have you encountered this situation, and if so, how did you handle it?

– A number of posters in this thread have made mention of “following the law.” But the OP referred to policies laid down by “the Boss.” This is confusing me a little, so I ask: Has any American state or local municipality established a “card everybody” law? Or is carding everybody still a matter of store/bar policy?

19

Spoons, I am not the OP, but I think I can answer some of your questions.

Liquor laws are the jurisdiction of individual states, so they aren’t uniform across the US. What is considered to be ID is also regulated by individual states wrt liquor sales. We accept Driver’s licenses, passports and military ID. It has to have a photo, name and birthdate. Some states won’t accept out of state driver’s licenses. Florida, because of the huge tourism industry, does accept out of state.

I am not aware of any states that have a “card everybody” policy. However, many states have laws that say that once an ID has been requested, if the person being asked for ID fails to produce one, the server/clerk/etc cannot sell age restricted items such as tobacco, alcohol or pornography.

Also, the penalties for selling age restricted items to under-aged people can be pretty stringent. If I would sell alcohol to a minor, I can be arrested on the spot. I would have to post bond and there would be a hearing. The maximum penalty for a first offence in my area is two years in jail, a $2000 fine and probation of two years, during which I would be unable to sell alcohol.

20

Same here, to a point. If management so desires, THEY may sell to someone to whom I will not, if they know the person, or just feel like it. But management may NOT force ME to sell to anyone.

G