# Some Passing Thoughts about Showing ID to Buy Alcohol **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Tags:** beer\ **Created:** [August 27, 2026, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588 "2026-08-27T03:16:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/161 "2026-09-04T02:43:24Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Nope Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/162 "2026-09-04T08:21:18Z")
I’ve been with someone in their late 30s we who was refused entry to a pub in Brisbane, Queensland, for not having ID. We were only going in to watch a football match, he wasn’t even planning on drinking. He was very clearly over 18, local drinking age - he was 10 years older than anyone else in the group and looked it so it hadn’t occurred to him to bring ID, but state rules said no ID no entry. I’ve since confirmed that, as the bar was open past midnight, that is indeed the law. I’ve been to a nightclub in England when old enough - pushing 40- that the security staff looked at me and asked if I knew it was a student venue and would be full of teenagers, but they _still_ insisted on checking my ID before allowing entry. I’ve been at a supermarket with my Dad, in the UK, where the person on the checkout asked _him_ for ID buying beer even though I was about 30 and Dad was around 65 at the time. The staff member was in training and teenage and they had been told to just ID everyone at that point \[1\]. Admittedly, we did manage to get a supervisor who allowed it that time on the basis that I had mine, but they weren’t happy about it. Hell I’ve even worked at a shop where a somewhat clueless co-worker refused to sell a beer to a guy who was obviously around 40 because he didn’t have ID\[2\]. None of those places are in the US. * * * 1. You don’t need to have your driving licence with you when driving in the UK, just need to be able to present it to a police station within 7 days if asked, so I most older people almost never carry ID 2. I could technically have intervened, but he was having a reunion with a bunch of his old school friends and they were all almost doubled over laughing, too funny to intervene ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/163 "2026-09-04T11:21:42Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > It has nothing to do with my looks. It’s a change in how seriously society takes the drinking age laws. I was a compliance investigator in the vice sector of the detective bureau during my first career in law enforcement. Many of the businesses that card everybody do so because they don’t want someone to get offended. Some Karen is going to bitch that the young man in front of her got carded but she didn’t. **“ARE YOU SAYING I LOOK OLD?”** They don’t have time for that nonsense so just card everyone. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > I believe that technically, they aren’t trying to buy alcohol, or sell sex, or whatever. As soon as they get to the point where they provably _could_, they stop the transaction. The transaction is completed. The investigator doesn’t cite the seller until they have made several more transactions. That way they won’t remember who they all sold to and won’t remember the decoy. (We called them decoys). We didn’t test often. Usually only when we got info that businesses were selling to underagers. Only on occasion would we do cold tests. When the decoy is asked for ID half the time we’d have them say they forgot it and the other half we’d have them show their real ID that stated they were underage. Some sellers would look at it missing the part where it said they were underage. When I was underage (18 was the age at the time) if I was somewhere that served alcohol that I could be in (like a fair or other festival, or the bowling alley), I would find an empty beer can/bottle and go up to the bar and say “give me another one of these”. It had the psychological effect of making the bartender think I had already been carded previously and didn’t need to be again. This technique worked 80% of the time. I had my decoys do this during a couple of tests. I had a captain chew my ass something fierce when he found out about it. Truth was I didn’t cite any of the sellers that fell for it. Only warned them and gave them this informational packet we had. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/164 "2026-09-04T13:44:44Z")
Society in a broad general sense has come to take the worrisome outcomes of drinking more seriously than they did when I was a teenager, if not as seriously as during the leadup to prohibition. Drunk driving. Incapacity to consent. Destructively violent behaviors. I bring into the situation a lifetime history as a militant children’s libber. It should always be about the behavior and not about the age. I still basically agree with that. I think if people could drink in restaurants etc when they were 10, drinking would not have the allure of forbidden grownup behavior that underlines that you’re a grownup if you do it. You’d be used to it and would have learned not to abuse it long before you’re hanging out with friends in your high school or college days. That was, by the way, the attitude in Germany when we visited when I was 13. Germany may have shifted in the intervening years, but it was working. I saw very few empickelated lurching loud stumbling drunks (or intoxicated children) but I could order a dark beer with my meal at 13 and nobody carded anyone. In our culture we have an inconsistent view of alcohol, much as we do about sex, that it is a good thing to suspend your inhibitions and relax and open up to share with others, yet it’s irresponsible to want these experiences and important to restrict them and control them very tightly and blame and shame those who engage in them in any way that slides into the inappropriate zone. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/165 "2026-09-04T13:51:46Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I think you misunderstood me. What I find hard to believe is that NJ kept re-issuing you non-photo licenses for nearly 40 years after they started putting photos on them. Got it. And that is absolutely what they did. We had the option of having the paper version or photo version. Why would I want the hassle of going to the DMV to have a photo taken if they would just mail me a paper license? It caused raised eyebrows whenever we traveled in other states and used credit cards–people would ask for ID and I’d show them my flimsy NJ license with no photo and they would be surprised. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/166 "2026-09-04T13:57:30Z")
The “age of adulthood” used to be 21. Then it dropped to 18 for a lot of things, during the Vietnam war, on the theory that if you were old enough to die for your country, you were also old enough to have a drink, etc. The drinking age was 18 for a while in much of the US. Mothers against drunk driving (i think, at any rate, social forces adjacent to them) made a case that it was a really bad idea for new drivers to also be new drinkers, and got the drinking age pushed back to 21. I think it really _is_ a bad idea to be learning to handle alcohol while you are still a new driver. But i wonder if we would be better off if we moved the drinking age down, so it wasn’t a big deal to get really drunk when you turn X. If the drinking age were young enough that kids were generally under parental supervision when they could order a beer, i think few would really get slammed. It would also make it viable for colleges to have adults supervising big parties. Right now, those parties are illegal, so they can’t supervise without bring complicit in illegal activity. But if the parties were legal they could have a couple of chaperones around, who, at a minimum, could safely deal with cases of alcohol poisoning. And could probably reduce the overall recklessness of those parties. (Which happen despite the law, of course.) Would we have more kids get addicted to alcohol younger? Maybe. But i think it would overall be a decrease in alcohol related harm. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/167 "2026-09-04T14:10:35Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > But i wonder if we would be better off if we moved the drinking age down, so it wasn’t a big deal to get really drunk when you turn X And I wonder if you’re not right. I’ve been all over Europe in the past 45 years and observed different attitudes from ours regarding alcohol consumption. The last time I was in italy the drinking age was 16 (they have since raised it). We were in a club in Pisa, “The Wall”. About a dozen high schoolers came in. All appeared over 16. Only 2 ordered wine and beer, the rest coffee. When I was 16 we would have went nuts if we could have drank legally. The forbidden fruit thing needs to be put down. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/168 "2026-09-04T14:26:32Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I think it really _is_ a bad idea to be learning to handle alcohol while you are still a new driver. But i wonder if we would be better off if we moved the drinking age down, so it wasn’t a big deal to get really drunk when you turn X. Yes. Also the driving age. If I can reach the pedals and pass the driving test, it should be about my skills and behaviors as a driver, not my age. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/169 "2026-09-04T16:31:08Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > They don’t have time for that nonsense so just card everyone. One person shits their pants, so we ALL gotta wear diapers. It’s the American Way. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/170 "2026-09-04T16:34:38Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > When I was 16 we would have went nuts if we could have drank legally. The forbidden fruit thing needs to be put down. When I was stationed “Over There”, I noticed there were union-negotiated benefits of two (2) beers at lunch for civilian employees on US bases. I believe this is still the case. This is nice, and I was told it was, for a time, also extended to US military personnel as well. You can guess what happened. No, the 2 beer at lunch went bye-bye for Americans on base. Sad. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/171 "2026-09-04T17:02:12Z")
Of course, in Germany, the legal limit for blood alcohol while driving is 0. They can do this because they are much less dependant on using cars for daily life than we are. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/172 "2026-09-04T17:12:06Z")
Eh, that’s certainly part of it. They aren’t as goofy about some of things the way America has gone. There is no sensible middle, everything seems to go lurching from one extreme to the other. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/173 "2026-09-04T18:43:02Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > We had the option of having the paper version or photo version. Not sure this was still an option for new licenses when I got my NJ license in 1992. But I may have wanted to have a photo license as I did not yet have a passport. This thread says the non-photo license was phased out starting in 2004. > **[New Jersey Driver's License Has no Photo on it?](https://forums.immigration.com/threads/new-jersey-drivers-license-has-no-photo-on-it.130745/)** > > This is not an GC-orient question but since we > often talk a lot about photo ID issue so that > I pose this question. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/174 "2026-09-04T18:46:23Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Of course, in Germany, the legal limit for blood alcohol while driving is 0. 0 is for commercial drivers. 0.5% is for everyone else. > **[Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) Drink Driving Limits across Europe](https://etsc.eu/issues/drink-driving/blood-alcohol-content-bac-drink-driving-limits-across-europe/)** > > These are the maximum drink driving limits across Europe for drivers as well as special limits for commercial and novice drivers where applicable. Shown in grammes per litre. Standard BAC limits in… ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/175 "2026-09-04T19:12:20Z")
Thanks for the correction. A friend who spent a year in Berlin prior to the wall coming down (and took the subway between East and West every week to watch opera) was my source, and either he was wrong or things have changed. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2026, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/176 "2026-09-04T19:25:14Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Yes because it’s _the place_ that really really wants to turn away obviously adult customers. And _only_ in America do places ever do this. That is not true, it is NOT only in America. > [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Nope. As has already been said. But you are living in a world made up inside your own mind. > [@Filbert](#): > > I’ve been with someone in their late 30s we who was refused entry to a pub in Brisbane, Queensland, for not having ID. We were only going in to watch a football match, he wasn’t even planning on drinking. He was very clearly over 18, local drinking age - he was 10 years older than anyone else in the group and looked it so it hadn’t occurred to him to bring ID, but state rules said no ID no entry. I’ve since confirmed that, as the bar was open past midnight, that is indeed the law. > > I’ve been to a nightclub in England when old enough - pushing 40- that the security staff looked at me and asked if I knew it was a student venue and would be full of teenagers, but they _still_ insisted on checking my ID before allowing entry. > > I’ve been at a supermarket with my Dad, in the UK, where the person on the checkout asked _him_ for ID buying beer even though I was about 30 and Dad was around 65 at the time. > [@DrDeth](#): > > In my experience they do not do so- except for Target. And I posted a cite that says they do in Sweden. How many states and nations have you been to? I have been to about 25 states but only three nations. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > Mothers against drunk driving (i think, at any rate, social forces adjacent to them) made a case that it was a really bad idea for new drivers to also be new drinkers, and got the drinking age pushed back to 21. Yep, and lowered the Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) limit to 0.08% in many states where it was higher. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > I think it really _is_ a bad idea to be learning to handle alcohol while you are still a new driver. But i wonder if we would be better off if we moved the drinking age down, so it wasn’t a big deal to get really drunk when you turn X. If the drinking age were young enough that kids were generally under parental supervision when they could order a beer, i think few would really get slammed. It would also make it viable for colleges to have adults supervising big parties. Yeah, either you are an adult- or you are not. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2026, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/177 "2026-09-05T04:43:28Z")
> [@Die\_Capacitrix](#): > > This thread says the non-photo license was phased out starting in 2004. I think “starting in” must be the operative word. I remember those paper licenses into the teens. So convenient to get a new license. A friend of mine from another generation told me how New York had a paper license that had a stub on it that the police officer would tear off and write the violation on and take with him. That’s interesting, and from an entirely different world. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2026, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/178 "2026-09-05T12:19:03Z")
That person is either old (like over 80) or mistaken , because what paper NY licenses [did](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/03/17/nyregion/17licenses-evolution.html) have (at various times) was a record of convictions on the back, where courts recorded convictions and a separate stub to send in for a renewal - but the police didn’t take the stub for a violation ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2026, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/179 "2026-09-05T12:29:45Z")
In Saul Bellow’s _Herzog_, a police officer in 1960s Chicago can tell that a driver had a previous moving violation from the staple marks on his license. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2026, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588/180 "2026-09-05T13:13:58Z")
Old or dead. He was in his fifties when I knew him in 1993. And he might have misremembered. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-passing-thoughts-about-showing-id-to-buy-alcohol/1032588.md?page=10)