Sometimes it’s not fines they’re worried about. It’s a lawsuit. I mentioned one case upthread (I think) where a store sold liquor to someone that was of age. He then supplied it to minor who drank it, got in her car, had an accident and was killed. The family sued the store where the liquor was purchased. I have no idea what the result was, but I’m sure it still cost that store money to defend itself. Because of things like this a lot of store just refuse to sell alcohol if it’s bleedingly obvious your going to let minors drink it. For example, when one person in the party is 22 and the other three with him are 20.
Oh, and at the store now, even if you are by yourself and everything is honky dory (no minors hanging out right outside the door, no kids our spouses sans ID with you) if they still have a gut feeling you might give it to someone else, they’ll actually make you sign something stating that you won’t do it. Yeah, you can be annoyed and walk out (I did the first time) or you can just sign the book and keep your booze.
If you look at the linked .pdf in my post, you’ll see that Section 156 (2) clearly states:
So the store is still potentially liable in these circumstances if we reasonably suspect the alcohol is for a minor and don’t ask for ID and refuse the sale in the absence of appropriate ID verifying everyone in the group as being over 18.
And more importantly, hands up everyone in this thread who works in the Liquor Industry in the State of Queensland, Australia. Oh look, it’s me! And I had to undergo a day-long course in the Responsible Service of Alcohol, approved by the Queensland Government (along with periodic “refresher” coures), and I deal with this stuff every single day. I’m not pulling this stuff out of my ass for the sheer hell of it, you know.
There are signs out of the front of every bottle shop in the company I work for that say “Don’t Buy It For Them!” listing some of the fines that apply to the store, to parents, and to minors. I’ve had Liquor Licencing officers tell me that’s the law as well. I really don’t know what else would satisfy some of you people, to be honest.
Each State has different laws in regards to this sort of thing. You should know that, living in the US.
South Australia’s liquor laws are slightly different to Queenslands, and in Queensland “Secondary Supply” carries a fine of up to $6,000 for the person so supplying the minor, not to mention the fines for the liquor store and the licence nominee. The handbook you’ve linked to is a pretty good General Guide to the Liquor Laws in Australia (Anyone want to make a “It’s the Vibe” joke? Anyone? :)), but the Devil is in the details- in this case, the “Cause or Permit” clause of s156(2) of the Liquor Act 1992 (QLD).
Trying to say “But in SA it’s not an offence so therefore your information about Queensland is wrong too!” is a bit like someone asking a question about traffic law in California and someone else comes in with a Traffic Law Guide from Montana and tries to compare the two. That’s great, but it’s a different state and the laws aren’t the same.
I was in one store here in PA that wouldn’t even let you INSIDE if you were under 21. I don’t know if that’s the case in all, but I had to provide my idea before I was allowed to go back to the shelves.
(On the other hand, I remember at the local beer distributor, how they would have lollipops behind the counters to give to little kids who came in with their parents. I don’t know if they still do that nowadays, though)
Because the clerk is making some poor customer’s life more difficult when all he is doing is complying with the law.
It varys a great deal state by state…
IIRC In Texas, it’s covered under the Alcoholic Beverage code under negligence:
Basically, the TABC will claim that you are being negligent by selling to an adult who you could reasonably know will give it to the minors in question. This also includes minors stealing beer and running out the door with it…it’s considered negligent to put it where they could steal it. The courts in Texas have consistently backed the TABC on this. It give them a lot of leeway to jack with clerks.
I know you want to think the evil clerk is just making this all up to make your life miserable but they aren’t. I personally know people who have lost their jobs and recieved fines for having been stolen from them, or selling to an adult with minors present. I have PERSONALLY been told this by the TABC in their alcohol servers class so I know the people who have had it happen to them are not making this up.
What I don’t understand is how the businesses can get in trouble for other people behaving irresponsibly. If a kid gets a fake to work, the cashier and business get a far more severe punishment than the kid does… They get jail time, and massive fines. The kid will get a minor in possession ticket and laugh about it to his friends.
The fact that they have stings to catch clerks is to me utterly appalling. Imo, they should have to ask for age, nothing more, and if the customer lies, its the customers fault, noone elses.
Even if this were the case, you know that business owners (and clerks) would still be facing potential lawsuits from families who claim they should have been more vigilent in not allowing junior to buy or steal liquor before he crashed his car.
Along those lines, I wonder what role insurance companies play in this? Maybe some insurers mandate convenience store chains or liquor stores to follow certain policies in order to reduce liability exposure?
(I have a suspicion that a lot of the rules we follow in our society partly originate from insurers.)
There were no real bars in Texas when I was a pup; it was illegal to sell any alcohol other than wine or beer in any location other than a liquor store. There were God’s plenty of “beer joints” that sold beer only; they even had places where a “car hop” would bring the beer to your car. But an adult couldn’t buy beer for a non-adult, even that law was broken more than it was honored. There were also places that sold “set-ups” or “mixers” If you brought your own bottle but minors weren’t allowed inside those places and they were pretty strict about it. I was refused service in a liquor store once because I was with my cousin, who was two weeks short of his 21st birthday; IIRC, I was three weeks past mine. But back in those days, the damned Southern Baptists had more clout than the Legislature. I know things have changed there since then, but it was one hell of a restrictive place back in 1961. On the other hand, there seemed to be no objection to selling cigarettes to children; I bought 'em when I was twelve.
How, pray tell, could a clerk in a liquor store prevent (presumably) husky, muscular teens from grabbing cases of beer and running out the door with them? This boggles my mind. I’d still like to thank the OP and other contributors to this thread for permanently removing this job from any consideration I might have previously had to apply for. These rules and regulations are draconian. I wonder, would it be possible to fine the parents of any teenagers just as heavily as the clerks and owners of said liquor stores?
I was in the military while I moved between many states, and while I kept my military ID, I found it was easier to get a local ID. Just in case. Almost 99% of the time, they asked me to surrender the original ID before they would issue the local one. So you wouldn’t have a spare.
We had a local flea market back in TX, and the fakes we bought were usually pretty good. I used mine for years and only got challenged once. I lost the argument and the ID. The next day I went back to the flea market and the guy said “hey, I’ve got the new stamps* for ID’s. But it’ll cost you an extra $10.”
Best $10 I ever spent.
*=embossing of the state seal in a repeated pattern on the actual laminate. Good work. Gotta love an artist who takes pride in his work, eh?
Can you see how tiny the violins are going to be for this one? No one is being harmed or being denied a basic right or being unfairly discriminated against based on a suspect classification. On the other hand, a clerk and his employer are benefiting from substantial risk avoidance and society is benefiting from at least some minimal degree of reduced improper use of alcohol.
No, it’s just another pointless law that’s more of an inconvenience than a help.
I assume this rule does not go into effect in the event of an armed theft? A clerk shouldn’t have to take a bullet to prevent a 17-year-old from drinking a beer.
They do ask, but in most states if you say you left it back in your home state they will issue it anyway.
No, I really don’t love it. When I did security bars it made my life difficult, and when I caught someone with a flea market ID…even a good one…I had them jacked up against the wall in handcuffs till the sherrifs deputy got there. Usually those ids have in fine print that it is a novelty ID somewhere on the card (otherwise they go to jail for making them), and if the poor working stiff who sells you the beer misses it…which as you know they usually do…then the guy behind the counter loses his job and/or goes to jail. Having been one of those poor working stiffs trying to pay the rent and put food on the table and pay the rent while working in a bar and going to college I rather dislike fake ids, and I took it personally.
Trying to buy booze with a fake ID is a misdomeaner, but CARRYING a fake ID in Texas is a felony (at least it was at the time). We would make it clear to the person with the ID that it would be up to the officer which they charged them with. Usually they gave them a ticket, but more than once I saw them haul the guy off to jail (still probably charged them with the misdomener)…especially if he copped an attitude. Usually the snot nosed little punk was wetting himself by the time the deputies got there.
The day they informed me of that at the alchoholic beverage training class I put in my two weeks notice. I had one person steal beer from me during that two week period and I chased him into the parking lot with a 6 cell mag light…I got the beer back and then called the cops who arrested him down the street.
I later worked in a bar as a bouncer, but never again in a retail store that sold alchohol. Two risky.
not easily. What the drone who taught the class said was the beer should be somewhere where minors cant just grab it and run. I was working in a convienience store at the time, where they had big displays of the stuff.
Liquor stores have the advantage of usually not allowing teens in the place to start with, but we didn’t. I hated that job.
[Graham Chapman]That’s not an argument. That’s just contradiction.[/Graham Chapman]
Good call on your part. Apparently, in Texas, retail clerks are expected to do 90% of the TABC’s legwork.
I think that was Michael Palin. 
No, it isn’t.
