Even though the bouncers/doormen check ID’s and know how old you are:
I’ve heard of some people telling random strangers that it’s their 21st birthday, which resulted in free drinks for the night.
However, I’m not sure if anyone would be suspicious of them or not (depending on if the bar/club has several security guards/bouncers throughout the building) since I haven’t witnessed a situation like this (yet) but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone attempted to do so.
I stopped at a bar one year on Veterans Day. Turns out they were giving all Veterans a free drink. I ordered a beer and the young bartender told me it was free.
I asked someone why my drink was free and he told me. I’m not a veteran, but the 19 year old bartender assumed any old guys were vets!
Are you talking about them telling bartenders it’s their 21st birthday or random other customers? I can see the customers buying them a drink but I would think a bartender would check the ID of someone who said that. Even if the bouncers/doormen are supposed to check ID and not let anyone in if they are under 21 ( and that’s a big 'if" ) it’s the bartender who will get into trouble for serving someone underage.
The first thing I thought of.
I’m talking more about people who are aren’t 21 telling random people at the bar that it’s their 21st birthday just to get some free drinks from them.
Even though this only works at certain bars, you can only get away with it once before choosing another bar.
I don’t expect a fraudster will get more than one free one from a bartender unless there’s more to the story. Usually, it’s the birthday guest’s party buying drinks. Randos stumbling around hitting up patrons? Buzz off.
Don’t they bring a cake if it’s a ‘special occasion’ at Applebees or Red Olive Garden?
At a bar I used to frequent, the free beer fraud attempts involved approaching the bar with two bottles from the display cases. The busy bartender would open the bottles, then the fraudster would act upset, saying they were taking them home for later. The first few times the 'tender would apologize and not charge for them. Once they were onto the ruse, they’d take the opened bottles off the bar, saying they’d trash them, then they’d give them to someone (often me).
If you tell a bartender you just turned 21, even if it isn’t to get a free drink, you’re essentially forcing them to card you. A lot of bars have a policy that if you appear under 35, they have to card you. If you tell them you’re under 35, they’re probably going to do it.
Also, any bartender who gives or sells a drink to someone based on them saying they turned 21 today are likely okay with selling to underage people in the first place. Back in my day, I knew a handful of liquor stores and gas stations that would happily sell alcohol or cigarettes to anyone, so long as you didn’t come right out and tell them you weren’t of age.
If it’s a club, you’re carded at the door & the bartender assumes everyone in there/with a wristband is legal; whether you tell 'em it’s your 21st or 50th, you’re just trying to score a free drink.
I knew someone who had many, many birthdays; essentially any time we went to a chain restaurant it was to celebrate their birthday - in exchange for some off key singing & clapping by the waitstaff they’d get a free dessert out of it.
My then (& slightly older) gf turned 21; took her out to a bar to celebrate. The bartender walks over to us
Bartender: Whaddaya want?
GF: Aren’t you going to card me?
me: [slinks down] - remember I’m only 20 & x months
Bartender: Not really
GF: You’re really not going to card me?
me - [slinks down even further]
Bartender: No
GF: but I want you to card me
me: [tries to become one with the barstool]
Bartender: ::sigh:: lemme see your ID
GF: [proudly hands over ID]
me: [shitting myself]
Bartender: Oooh, look, you’re legal, now whaddaya want?
me: [breathes huge sigh of relief that he also asks for my drink order] & [kicks her]
They aren’t telling the bartender. They’re telling other patrons.
When I was in college I was at one of the bars where a woman claimed it was her 21st birthday and she was going to celebrate by having 21 shots of tequila, all of which were going to purchased by her fiends and other patrons of the bar. I remember buying her a shot in exchange for a kiss (which might have been an indication of how drunk she already was by then).
If others are willing to foot the bill for 21 shots of tequila for her, then yeah, they’re fiends.
Heh, by the time I was 21, I had been drinking in bars for years. I looked older than I was from 13 years on (one of my friends admitted she thought “What is that 28 year old doing in the dorm?” when I was 18). It took some work to get bartenders at bars that I had been playing at and getting paid partly in drinks for at least three years to card me on my birthday. A couple were less than pleased to find out they’d been serving some who was underage. I’d also been approached by other folks roughly my age to buy beer for them several times because they thought I was far older than I was. In high school I had to tell one kid that I could buy him beer, but I was in his algebra class.
So even if I realized this was a ploy for a free drink (I’m pretty dense), my response would have been, “Awesome, you can buy your own drinks and don’t need someone to do it for you any more. Go get 'em!”
When I was at university in Missouri in the 80’s a friend was going to turn 21 on a Sunday. We decided to take her to a bar and go in at the stroke of midnight (the bar was open until 2:00). The bouncer wouldn’t let her in since the bar wasn’t allowed to open on Sundays so technically the hours between midnight and 2:00 were still counted as Saturday.
An inadvertent, but oddly correct, typo on my part.
That’s odd. My first legal drink was at a bar around the corner from my house. I went in at the stroke of midnight on my real 21st birthday. I showed the bartender my ID and I got free drinks on the house all night which for me was only a couple of shots of tequila but still. Everyone I knew celebrated at midnight the same way. Of course different times, jurisdictions and bars have different rules.
I was born in December and the drivers licences back then were on thick paper with basically a color photograph on it with a picture and information. I got some chalk and covered up the leading 1 so it looked like my birthday read 2/23/63 rather than 12/23/63. A real license would have read 02/23/63 but I used it many dozens of times and no one caught on.
If that’s not a quirk of the local laws, I suspect it’s a bouncer or bar management being extra careful. If she, for example, got into an accident on the way home, the cops may want to talk to the bar owner, and the bar owner might not want to try to prove she didn’t get there until after midnight.
When I was in high school, it was tradition for people to buy a lottery ticket, pack of cigarettes and a playboy/playgirl when they turned 18. But, from what I’ve heard, some gas stations wouldn’t sell those items to someone who just turned 18 that day.
Having said that, I’m running across some anecdotes that agree with that. That even though they’re open until 2am, it’s all counted as yesterday.
Edit: I think it comes from this
Illinois TPP-22 defines “day” as “The period of time beginning from the opening of business to the close of business, not exceeding twenty-four hours.”
At the moment, I’m not finding this on a .gov page, but here’s the most official thing I could find, which is where I got that statement from.
OP, you’re asking about people who have already turned 21, right? They come in on their 22nd or 23rd birthday, or it’s not even their birthday, but the point is, they claim it’s their 21st when they’re a year or more past that. Then the question is, are they committing fraud by pretending to be younger than they are?
That’s what I originally meant, since I never saw this happen in person (yet)
Even though I’m 27, I’m not sure if I look “young” enough (or have the certain features) to pull it off successfully, despite mixed reactions from people who may or may not believe you while under the influence.
However, since a majority of bars (that I’ve been to so far) check ID’s at the door, I don’t remember any bartender checking my ID once I was inside, since they assume that you’re at least 21 or older if they let you in, despite fake ID’s slipping through on occasion.
And to answer your question: Yes, they are committing fraud, just to score some free drinks that night, even though they probably can’t go back to that bar since the bartenders would recognize them.
I go to many bars/breweries. Many. Maybe it’s my location, but I’ve never been carded at the door.
I have been carded at the door entering a small venue with bands as part of paying my cover charge.