That’s a lame policy. How long before it “resets”? That is, I assume if the man came back the next day without his son he could buy beer. What if he left and came back an hour later, would that be okay? Bizarre.
This seems very silly to me. Who cares who’s with the person buying alcohol? It’s presumably going to a house somewhere, where a variety of people from age 0 to 99 will be.
A clerk refused to sell an ex-girlfriend strawberry daiquiri mix because she was underage. Just the mix, no alcohol. She doesn’t even drink.
Please tell us how the clerk’s supposed to know if someone is of legal age without carding them. :rolleyes: Or if that really was his wife or her daughter. You don’t seriously expect them to risk their job on the customer’s word, do you? It is better to lose a sale than risking breaking the law (exact quote from our handbook). Not only will I be fired for a 1st offence, my manager will be terminated if our store get’s 3 violations in a 24 month period (whether he’s present when they occured or not).
No, of course it’s not your responsibility to put it back on the shelfs. The clerk should simply remove the items from the counter and ring up the rest of your order. They can be put pack later. You’re also perfectly free to leave without buying anything as long as you don’t argue, curse, throw stuff, or spit at the cashier (all of which I’ve had happen).
Suppose the minor was 2 years old. Would that make a difference? How about 8? 12? 14? What’s the lower limit of the prohibited range?
She doesn’t have a driver’s licence, and I do. Driver’s licence and passport are the most common IDs to have in the UK, very few people carry their passport. That means if you don’t have a driver’s licence, you have to suck it up if you’re ID’d. I don’t know anyone that carries any other ID - when kids hit 18 I think they show off their passport like a badge to get booze, but a few years later…I imagine most people aged above roughly 20 don’t get asked for it enough to cart round their passport.
Zen Beam’s statement:
followed by even sven’s reply:
No mention of arguing, cursing, throwing, or spitting, yet even sven appears to believe that walking out the door makes the clerk’s life more difficult. Perhaps it does, but I don’t see where that’s the buyer’s problem. If a store refuses to sell ANY merchandise, for WHATEVER reason, to a customer, I in no way see where the customer has to restock it.
That’s different than asserting that there is a law that precludes selling alcohol to anyone accompanied by someone who is either a minor or without identification proving they are not a minor. 
Stores do NOT have to have such policies. It’s perfectly possible to have a more customer friendly policy that still results in avoiding sale of alcohol to proxies for minors. But it’s like counting athletes for Title IX: you can prove compliance other ways, but counting athletes is easy and much harder to screw up. So that’s what most institutions do. Similarly, a store with a policy that says: do NOT sell to anyone accompanied by someone who can’t prove they are not a minor will be much less likely to fall afoul state liquor laws than one that allows its clerks discretion. 
So If I, a 15 year old kid, get $100 worth of odds and ends and the supermarket and then go to check out, I should just walk away and abandon my cart when the cashier refuses to sell me cigarettes?
PS I’m not 15.
PPS, I’m not agreeing OR disagreeing with your statement, just asking a question.
In the United States, the same agencies that issue driver’s licenses also issue “state identification cards” (“non-driver” licenses). Every adult I know who isn’t licensed to drive has one of these I.D. cards.
My guess is a lot of stores simply want to avoid litigation. It’s a lot easier to refuse a few sales than it is to defend a lawsuit. Even if you win, it costs a lot to defend.
I have actually posted opinions on sites and have people threaten me with legal action if I don’t remove them. I told them “Take it up with the owner of the site, and if you want to go ahead sue me, but I’ll counter sue for costs.” Nothing is ever done, but I can imagine how many people get scared of threats and comply.
That’s my question too. So a mother who brings her strong 16 year old son along to help with the heavy bags is penalized and cannot buy a bottle of wine to enjoy at dinner with her husband, but a father who can carry all the bags and has a 1 year old in a sling on his chest is okay? Or are they both told sorry, you can’t have booze if you’ve got a kid, period? So then we’re just penalizing parents.
Thats technically true, but most bars wont let the kid drink anyway. If they parent gets up to go to the bathroom the bartender/waitress isupposed to take the drinks off the table until the parent returns. It’s a big hassle and liability for the bar and none of the bars I bounced for would allow it.
I had to take the texas alcholic beverage class and we were were taught that if we saw minors in the car or with the buyer not to sell it to them. I turned down dozens of people buying beer for that reason back in college…of course it’s been a couple of decades but I understand it’s still the law. If you sell beer to someone who gives it to a minor, and the TABC can reasonably assume you knew about it you go to jail and usually lose your job.
It used to be the same way in Texas (this was 10+ years ago, not sure if it’s still the case.) I drove from Illinois out to Dallas to live with my brother for a few months. It wasn’t a permanent situation, so I didn’t feel the need to get a Texas driver’s license. It wasn’t necessary, but it sure made buying booze a PITA! If I was lucky enough to get a clerk who “knew” me (but I’m sure he still could’ve gotten in big trouble by his boss,) he’d go ahead and let it slide; otherwise, I was SOL. It sucked, because we lived in a dry county, so I would stop off on my way home from work, which was quite a distance from our apt.
at places I worked we had a little alch bev code book to read during down times. I read the thing front to back and new the code better than most of the cops who came in. Texas has some wierd laws.
as for the out of state license thing…
When someone moves in from out of state and they get an in state id, they now have an extra out of state id to give to their younger sibling to use to buy beer. Therefore the law in many places is that the only id accepted is a current, in state issued id card. the cops don’t care if the person had a fake id, if the clerk sells to them, the clerk goes to jail…therefore many businesses have even stricter rules than the state law.
I would imagine the clerk would serve these folks without issue. They don’t have to invoke the policy, but if it’s there, they can use it when they need it. (The clerks aren’t robots and presumably understand the contextual difference between (A) a 38 year old woman buying wine with her 16 year old son and (B) a gaggle of 15-18 year old boys buying a case of Bud.)
BATF and similar state agencies impose restrictions on the merchant on how they handle the sale. Just like our many discussions of arrest by store security, store policy usually exceeds the law by a wide margin to make sure there is little if any liability in the event of a failure to comply fully with store policy.
Thanks Joey. That makes more sense than I could come up with.
The relevant legislation is section 156 of the Liquor Act 1992 (QLD) (.PDF), which states (in part):
The “premises to which a licence or permit relates” bit means “A premises licensed to sell alcohol”- ie a hotel bar, pub, bottle shop, liquor barn, restaurant, etc.
Minors are allowed to be in on licensed premises whilst being supervised by a “responsible adult” (basically, Mum, Dad, or someone old enough to be their parents who can exercise control over the minor- NOT an older brother or sister or cousin). There’s absolutely no problem with kids under about 13 being in the store with their parents- the sale would just go through without any questions.
The problem is the “Permit or allow liquor to be supplied to” clause of the legislation, which makes the licensed premises liable if they reasonably suspect the alcohol is for a minor and do not take appropriate steps.
So, a 38 year old Mum with a 16 year old son buying a single bottle of wine, and saying it’s for her only, then we’ll write the incident up and let the sale through. 42 year old Dad with a 17 year old daughter buying a case of Guava-flavoured Vodka Cruisers, a couple of bottles of Passion Pop, and Premixed “Cowboy” cocktails? We’re likely going to refuse the sale unless the daughter can prove she’s 18.
And before anyone asks, if the Dad had come in on his own and purchased the same stuff, we’d just put the sale through. The presence of the minor is what creates the “reasonable doubt” in our minds that the alcohol is for him, or that he’s only supplying it to other adults at a party.
All this is covered in the Responsible Service of Alcohol courses, which staff in licensed premises are legally required to undertake before they can work there. It’s not company policy or staff wanting to be assholes to stop people getting liquor- it’s the law, and the fines are fucking expensive, and enough to bankrupt most people. The Licence Nominee can get fined something like $30,000 personally, even if they were on holiday in Thailand at the time one of their staff sold alcohol to a minor. It’s not worth the risk, and retail staff (who are just like anyone else and need a job to pay the bills) are not going to risk those fines and other life-ruining consequences just because some 17 year old wanted a four-pack of Bacardi Breezers.
Incidentally, yes, we have had people complain to both our head office and Liquor Licensing about being refused service when they were with their teenaged minor children, and in every. single. case, both head office and Liquor Licensing have stood behind us 100% and said we did the right thing by refusing the sale.