What the hell? I heard someone mention getting their driver’s license swiped to buy alcohol recently in another thread somewhere and I meant to ask about it but figured, “eh, must be some anal local thing.”
Just got back from the store. I wanted to drop my Netflix off at the PO box, pick up some car wash liquid and what the heck, get some booze while I’m there.
The lady asks me for my ID. No biggie. I’ve been a bartender before and some places get a bug up their ass and ask for ID’s from everyone under 30-looking, or maybe even under-40 looking.
I’m over 40, and I’ve been shopping at this place for years, but hey, you want my ID, no problem. “I’m sorry sir, but could you take the ID out of your wallet so I can scan it?”
“Scan it??? I heard about this just other day. Why do you need to scan it?”
“Well, all you have to say is you don’t want me to scan it and I won’t have to. But I’ll need you to take the ID out of your wallet.”
“Okay. I’d rather you don’t scan my ID.”
“Thank you sir. But just so you know, if you’d been buying medicine, I’d have had to scan it.”
" :eek: "
Bad enough they take your ID information if you’re buying cold medicine for crying out loud. I might be running a meth lab.
But now they want to track everyone who buys booze or medicine?
What the bloomin’ hell do they need this information for?
Beverages & More has been doing this for a while, to check that you’re of legal age. I guess it’s better than making the clerk do it because the scanner forces them to card everyone.
When she asked me to take my DL out of my wallet, which is squished into the clear plastic part and a teensy bit of a pain to get out, I said (to myself) “screw this. Here’s my VALID military ID card. Scan this, beeyatch.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll need your regular ID.”
When I was a (college) freshman, a buddy and I (him 20, me 18) went on a liquor run and they swiped his ID. They still sold us the goods, though his ID was faker than silicone. How it withstood The Swipe, I don’t know, but it must not be as rigorous a fact-finding process as it seems. Then again, his ID was from a state 2500 miles away, so that may have something to do with it. I can tell you, though, that I’m not too worried about that magnetic strip after seeing that.
Then again, you may mean something different by “scan”. Do you mean swiping the magnetic strip?
Fuck that. Any government-issued identification with your picture, name and birthdate is good enough to buy booze. I wouldn’t have left until she accepted the military ID.
Just what I was coming in to say. DHS/BCIS/INS/WTF knows enough about me; the government doesn’t need to know my drinking habits or what sort of medicine I take for the sniffles.
It’s ironic that the defacto requirement for the purchase of alcoholic beverages is a motor vehicle permit or drivers license. And the reason the clerks have to so mind-numbingly silly about ID’ing everyone, nay unto grandmothers is because A. they want to keep their job, no discretion is allowed because of “sting” operations whereby under-age kids entrap vendors under color of law.
I know an eighteen-year-old girl from Belgium who uses a fake CA ID to get into nightclubs (which she got at MacArthur Park), and she said the guy who sold it to her told her the magnetic strip was blank. Nevertheless, a club she went to swiped it, and they let her in all the same. I wonder if they’re required only to swipe it, not actually verify it.
Funny thing happened to me lately. I got in touch with an old high school buddy I hadn’t seen in a couple of years and we made plans. He asked me to pick up some cigarettes for him on the way to his place. So I stopped at a gas station and asked for the brand he’d specified. I started to pull out my ID and the cashier stopped me and asked, “How old are you?” “20”, I replied, and then semi-jokingly, “and I can prove it”. He insisted I didn’t have to show him my ID because “undercover cops aren’t allowed to lie about their age”. I tried to explain to him that cops could both lie and commit lesser crimes to catch people in bigger crimes, but he ran right over me and repeated his UL, almost to the point of screaming it. I’d hate to be that guy when they hit his am/pm.
It may be worth testing sometime in the future, but I’m familiar with this particular woman. She’s older, been working there for awhile and personally wouldn’t give a rat’s ass but I got the impression she was telling me “I have to do this. Now they’re going to track your medicine buying habits too.”
First they required me to have a “club card.” I said nothing.
Then they started tracking my cold medicine buying habits. I said nothing.
Then they started swiping my ID in order to buy booze. I said nothing.
Then they required me to let them swipe my state government ID in order to buy medicine. I said nothing.
Then they… Gah! What kind of world am I living in??? I’ve heard about this before. I read history! I read dystopian science fiction!
It’ll be loads of fun when/if people get the option to put their ‘Goverment ID’ information on the same strip as there ATM card.
Not that I guess it matters much. At least now, a real live person has to look at the id check the picture, and the validity of the id. I’ve seen those pulled, and people turned away.
The GOV can do some spot checks (sting operatons) if they want on 21 year old purchases, fine. A magnetic strip is easy to defeat. And takes the onerous off the person making the sale.
Yeah, it bites, this “controlled substance let’s have your ID” stuff. I use Advil Flu and Body Ache and Advil Cold and Sinus meds not only to clear my head (I have formidable allergies and get sick a LOT), but to lose weight. They’re awesome appetite suppressants. It’s getting to be a pain buying the stuff. I figure as long as I look respectable they’ll keep selling me the crap. Man, leave it to a few nutty meth heads to ruin it for the rest of us! :rolleyes:
The thing is, it’s not like the meth heads themselves are buying Sudafed to make drugs out of. For the most part, it’s the dealers at the top of the food chain, manufacturing meth in labs or formidable home chemistry kits (so to speak), and then selling it to people who sell it to people who sell it to people etc. Odds are, most of these fellows have a couple people who owe them favors. Surely they can assign, say, six of these people to be their pseudoephedrine pipeline, and with an otherwise large Sudafed purchase spread across that many people nothing will look suspicious. So IMO it’s just money wasted on a pointless paper circulation system that won’t actually change a damn thing except to make the average Californian (or what-have-you) more paranoid and nervous.
California. Ten years ago when they started it the DVM was all, “don’t worry. It’s just for future use maybe. That strip doesn’t really contain anything useful. Maybe at some point in the future. We’re just putting it there just in case.”
Hrm… so does said magnetic strip have to “function” in order to purchase the demon rum? I think I read (probably here) that standard you-know-like-on-your-fridge magnets have no effect on typical credit-card magnetic strips.