Would you be weirded out by a store not letting you bring your kid in?

Specs Liquor is a Texas chain of liquor stores, some are straight liquor stores and some have extensive grocery sections and imported gourmet foods.

They seem to have a very inconsistent policy of only allowing people age 21 in the store, even minors in the company of their parents. It is very variable, occasionally a location will have a person at the door checking IDs and I saw some parents with infants just turn and leave and some argue and be allowed in, so it is almost just like they discourage minors in the store. I fully understand refusing teens unaccompanied by adults at the locations that only sell alcohol, but it makes no sense for those accompanied by adults and at the grocery locations.

Anyway I’d be very pissed to be told I couldn’t bring my young kid in with me to buy groceries, I’m supposed to get a baby sitter so I can get groceries?

That’s very, very weird - the whole American attitude towards alcohol is strange, though. What, is your five year old going to break open a Merlot and start chugging?

I’m one of those liberal commies from out in California (and probably a homosexual, too), and I would not expect a liquor store to have an age restriction for entry, unless it was primarily a bar.

In Indiana, kids can’t go into liquor stores, and it’s always been that way. You can take your kid down the liquor aisle at Walmart, but can’t take them in a dedicated liquor store. I’m pretty sure that it’s only been fairly recently that general grocery stores had liquor aisles. I think the change came around the time that you could no longer assume there was a housewife in every household to do the shopping during the day, and pick up the booze while the kids were in school.

There are no predominantly liquor stores here that might sell a few other things. The only non-booze things in liquor stores are mixers, wine glasses, cork screws, ice, stuff like that.

You used to be able to buy beer at convenience stores, but I’m not sure you can anymore.

I have been to dedicated liquor stores maybe four times in my life-- mostly when looking for something particular for a gift. I plan around having the boychik.

If you want to take your kid with you shopping, surely there is some place besides the liquor store you can go?

Sure, but they don’t have the imported gourmet goodies Spec’s does.:slight_smile:

Anyway like I said I fully get not allowing teens alone into a liquor store for shoplifting reasons, but an adult with a child? Like someone said what is the kid going to grab a bottle and start chugging it?

I also don’t understand how inconsistent they are with it, either it is allowed or not.

One of the many fine features of Spec’s (especially the Warehouse Store near downtown) is the tastings. Regularly, representatives will offer free sips of beer, wine or liquor. One recent afternoon whiskeys were featured. The Laphroig guy was there, telling us about Islay; we got to sip a couple of his samples & a mixologist even made a cocktail! There were other whiskeys (yes, I’m probably spelling it wrong) & a very slight buzz was achieved.

This would not be possible if people under 21 were allowed in the store. Or checking all those ID’s would be far too cumbersome. So I can fully understand the rule. (Also, the place sometimes gets crowded, especially around the holidays. The staff handles things well, but I’m quite happy there are no Little Darlings running around.)

This is probably a case of store policy aiming for a simple and clear policy at the expense of a more useful (but harder to determine) one.

A store is not supposed to sell alcohol to, say, a 21 year old with somewhat younger people accompanying them, since the expectation is that all those will be partaking. But what if it’s a 28 year old and two 14 year olds? More of a grey area. Maybe some teenagers hired a homeless person or a marginally employed person to buy them booze?

A policy of “Everyone who enters must be over 21” means that the employees don’t have to exercise judgment in those cases, which means they can’t get it wrong. I know lots of supermarkets that check everyone’s id, even the people with grey hair and canes, since it’s simpler.

The policy is probably enforced inconsistently because the employees, though not officially granted the capacity to use their judgment, are thinking and feeling human beings, and agree with everyone else that it’s stupid that a parent towing a five-year-old can’t pick up a bottle of wine. So it’s only really enforced when the manager is looking over their shoulder or a really by-the-book employee has that task.

According to the TABC, there is no law against an accompanied minor being in a liquor store, but it does say the individual store can have its own rules about it.

“A minor may not enter the premises of a package store unless accompanied by an adult parent, spouse or guardian. A licensee or permittee may have a “house rule” that minors may not enter their licensed premises.”

I usually don’t go in the chain store liquor stores like Specs, usually go to the smaller locally owned ones when I need something. From what I can remember most of them have signs on the door of “No one under 21 allowed”. Don’t really know how strick they are about bringing a child in with you, I have never tried it.

If I owned or managed a liquor store with thousands of dollars of glas bottles stacked floor to ceiling, sometimes in free standing pyramid displays, I would be more than a little worried about “not so well supervised” children running around the store. All it takes is one misbehaved/unwatched child to bump or push a few bottles and you have a domino effect crash all the way down the tequila aisle!

In Memphis there was a store (recently shut down for selling Spice) that had cool posters, hippie crafts, and smoking supplies. I took my nine year old in because she wanted a lava lamp. They kicked us out, despite not having really anything a child shouldn’t see. So they have bongs in the back, big deal. We just wanted to browse close to the front but the cashier told us no kids were allowed so we took our business elsewhere.

Not only did we allow kids into the liquor store I worked in, we made sure to have candy for them on Halloween.

I grew up in Kansas and Indiana, and while I can’t cite the actual laws in those states (though Rivkah above says kids aren’t allowed in liquor stores in Indiana), I do remember as a kid that my parents never took me in one.

So my instinctive behavior is to not take my daughter into one. I’ve always hit Binney’s when someone else is taking care of her.

So no, wouldn’t strike me as strange that a kid wouldn’t be allowed in a liquor store. Rather the opposite.

I was certainly taken to liquor stores as a kid, and I can’t ever recall being told to leave (this was in Minnesota, where grocery stores couldn’t sell booze). The thing where everyone in the group had to be 21 never made sense to me, given that it’s super easy to get around. Is that an actual law, or is it just individual stores implementing it?

In Texas, the law is you have to be 21 or have a legal parent/guardian with you. TABC does surprise inspections on occasion.

As long as a kid has a parent around, it’s up to individual stores.

I’ve seen it vary among different Spec’s stores. Seems to be less of an issue in the suburbs, but I can imagine the main store on Smith might not want as many kids around with how busy and hectic it can get in there.

The store might have a smoking bar inside, which means they have to prohibit entry to anyone under 21. I saw one in Arkansas, at a country gas and convenience store. If you needed to pay for gas and were under 21, there was a special entrance you had to go to, because they had a license to allow smoking on the premises…

I wish more stores had policies banning children (those that do have my unwavering loyalty). And speaking as a long time Specs customer there is a very good reason for this policy. Liquor is often sold in glass bottles, glass bottles can break, and moving every glass bottle in a giant liquor store higher than the reach of a bratty child is not worth the hassle.

Regular grocery stores sell plenty of things in glass bottles too, and children are always allowed in them.

Only because grocery stores would have a harder time than liquor stores at banning children. Actually, if you examine many supermarket shelves, you will notice that many of the more expensive, breakable items are on shelves out of toddler rampage reach. The $20.00 imported balsamic vinegar is on the top shelves with the cheaper stuff, frequently in plastic bottles, located much lower. Furthermore, the merchandise in grocery stores is usually less expensive than what is available even on the bottom shelves of liquor stores. Not to mention the trouble the liquor store would get into if Junior managed to get his paws on a bottle of cheap wine, twist off the cap, and took a swig. Beer is also a potential problem. Plenty of three year olds know how to open single serving cans.

Back in Texas, on my 21st birthday, I and a cousin entered a liquor store and I wasn’t allowed to buy booze because my cousin wasn’t 21. Out of idle curiosity I asked what if I took my cousin home and came back alone? The guy at the store said that legally he couldn’t sell it to me because he knew I intended to share with a minor.

This was in Dallas back in 1961.

It’s the inconsistency that would bug me. The idea of an adult-focused liquor and gourmet nibbles store sounds great to me, and I might even plan my trip for a time when I knew I could get childcare … then I would be exasperated if I showed up and other people had kids with them. For heaven’s sake, I could have come anytime in that case, and not had to make special plans.

I went to a wedding like that once, the invitation was very clear that it was adults only, and it was out of town, so I spent a lot of time finding a nanny service, and paid a lot of money for a nanny to come to the hotel, and then skipped some of the pre-wedding festivities to pick up the nanny, and spend some time hanging out with my kid and the nanny to make sure it wasn’t like I was suddenly thrusting her into the company of a complete stranger … and then I got to the wedding and there were several kids (around the same age as mine) having a grand old time, very nice, not bothering anyone and looking cute on the dance floor. Later I found out that some other guests had really pressed the issue with the bride, and she gave in. The whole thing would have been about a 1000 times easier for me if I would have brought my daughter.

Minors were not permitted in liquor stores when I was growing up, so it wouldn’t seem especially strange not to have kids in one now, even if that store also sold other things.

Our liquor laws are perhaps the most permissive here, and this seems bizarre to me. Why shouldn’t the kids watch daddy be a disappointment? :slight_smile:

Somewhat comparable: BevMo in California at one time seemed to have an unofficial policy of only accepting California IDs/DLs. It only affected me once and I think the manager okayed it. Subsequent visits had little problem. They were even wary about taking a passport! In banks they have books for the 50 states and for international passports and it explains the security features. No excuse why they couldn’t have some of those lying around.

Every summer, the news gets sensational with kids or pets dying in hot cars. Do they want you to leave the kids in the car? Tie their leashes to a post?

In supermarkets or liquor stores, beer is usually either in cardboard boxes or has the hard plastic 6-pack holders that go over the top. The soda-style sealife-killing 6 pack rings seem to be more for soda now.