January 15, 2007
View Comments | Post CommentAcceptable Forms Of Identification
I went grocery shopping today, and for some reason, grocery shopping always requires presentation of my driver's license, customer loyalty card (yay Harris Teeter! I am indeed loyal), and a debit card. After checkout was complete, I shoved them all hurriedly into my jacket pocket in order to stop blocking the checkout lane with my three-hundred and one dollars of ridiculous groceries. Big mistake. Always return one's cards to one's wallet.
Fast forward six hours. After a night of grilling steaks with a bunch of friends and roommates (and eating homemade, fresh-cut french fries, corn on the cob grilled in the husks, salad, and bratwurst), we all decided to make the trek up the Porter hill to Connecticut, to go to Cleveland Park's "Four Green Fields" pub. After checking out the draughts menu and ordering a Pilsner Urquell, I realized that I had left my driver's license in the jacket I wore to the grocer's. "Okay," I thought. "No problem. I'm twenty-four and look even older than that." But it was a problem.
The waitress was nice as could be. She asked for my ID, and I explained the sitch. She understood, but said they had a strict policy and it was ultimately up to the manager. "Okay, now it'll work out," I thought. "I'll just talk to the manager." I'm quite the smooth talker, you see. But it didn't work out.
The manager, a rotund hulk of malformed, non-Irish idiocy, bent his one good eye toward me and said, "I'm sorry but we have a policy. You can't prove that you're 21, so we can't serve you."
"But I can!" I insisted. I presented him with the following:
- Voter registration card, containing my name, birth date, and social security number
- Social security card, containing my name and social security number
- Georgetown Law Center ID, with name and picture
- Vanderbilt University ID, with name and picture
- various credit cards containing my name
- California Tortilla burrito card with two burrito stamps
I also pointed out the fact that I look well over twenty-one, and have been to the Four Green Fields several times before.
He, old hunchback, just stared blankly and then repeated himself, unable to muster the mental forces required to make a reasonable decision. "No. That doesn't work. We need your driver's license or passport."
Sensing defeat at the hands of the cretinous, ursine cyclops, I lowered my expectations. "Alright, then. Well, how about I just don't drink anything, but I stay here with my friends. You see, we made this really long hike up the hill, and--"
"No. You can't be in here unless you can prove that you're twenty-one."
And so it was that I was forced to walk all the way back down the hill, up the 120 stairs to my house, up the three floors to my room to grab my other jacket, down the three floors, down the 120 stairs, and back up the now humongous hill.
When I arrived back at the bar, I almost missed him. The manager was lurking like a troll beneath a bridge, at the side of the entry-way, popping out only when he smelled me pass. This time he checked my ID and thanked me, only to return to his home until the next time some unfortunate traveler forgets his ID and must be confronted by a lazy-eyed, hirsute, angry troll with managerial powers.
He did end up giving me my first beer free, and that was uncharacteristically nice of a troll... but it was really rather expected of a human.
Posted at January 15, 2007 3:45 AM | Comments (15)
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I feel your pain. I swear that one day bureaucracy is going to be the death of me...
Posted by: E :) at January 15, 2007 6:55 AM
I'm sure REAL ID will solve all these problems.
Posted by: Jay Goodman Tamboli at January 15, 2007 9:00 AM
It SUCKS when that happens. I'm in my thirties and they still make me jump through hoops because I look really young.
Posted by: Pagan Marbury at January 15, 2007 10:41 AM
you're quite a trooper. i would have almost assuredly stayed home the second time around. besides, i wouldn't want to give a troll like that the satisfaction.
also, i cannot believe he wouldn't accept your voter registration card. what are the chances that some under-age kid would make and carry around a fake voter registration card on the off-chance that he forgot his fake ID at home? i'd say a voter registration card is probably more reliable proof of 21-ness than a driver's license these days.
Posted by: jeanette at January 15, 2007 11:30 AM
In the guy's defense, the city bureaucrats frequently recruit honest looking minors to trap bartenders, waitresses, and managers, unleashing heavy penalties when they fall for them. The punishment ranges from fines to requirements that all servers take a lame class on alcohol management techniques. So while a cool manager might have let you go, the mofos with DC alcohol enforcement deserve the bulk of your ire.
Posted by: Jacob at January 15, 2007 12:26 PM
Jay - Yeah, if only my voter registration card would have had an embedded smart chip whose hash could have been compared to that broadcast by the RFID implanted in my wrist. Or maybe I could have just sworn on the blood of Christ or something.
Pagan - That's a good thing, I guess.
Jeanette - I agree. And I had so many other things to match it. I said something like, "I'm in law school! No one in law school is under twenty-one!" Of course that isn't entirely true, but it's like 99% true. So he said, "It's too easy to fake a student ID." But Jesus, with at least 8 or 9 different things indicating that I am David Barzelay and that David Barzelay is twenty-one, you'd think he'd have made an executive decision and served me a fucking beer. Or at least just let me stay without drinking.
Posted by: Barzelay at January 15, 2007 1:13 PM
Yea, like Jacob says, liquor control places are the one to blame for the strict rules of ID checking. I probably would've done the same thing as the manager. I would've even told you not to bother showing me 7 other forms of ID, cause if it's not a passport or driver's license, I'm not gonna take it. It's just easier that way and doesn't risk getting fined or losing a license to serve booze.
Posted by: Ula at January 15, 2007 1:14 PM
Jacob and Ula - I know. I went home and looked up the statute. It turns out that acceptable forms of ID are:
- state-issued driver's license or identification card
- military ID
- passport
- national employment authorization form
Nevertheless, I think that someone actually being 21 would be a bar to prosecution. I could very easily be wrong about that, such as if it's a crime to fail to check ID, rather than just to serve a minor. Also, if a cop or a cop's agent went as far as I did to try to catch some bar serving minors (even printing fake state documents and such), I'm fairly certain that it would be entrapment.
And, even ignoring all of that, there is no legal requirement that they not even allow me into the bar. That's just a policy of that establishment. The manager could at least have let me stay, and simply refused to serve me alcohol.
But yes, I have plenty of ire reserved for the D.C. alcohol cops.
Posted by: Barzelay at January 15, 2007 1:31 PM
This is just speculation, but... do regulatory agencies have to worry about entrapment? I think serving alcohol to minors would be a regulatory infraction, not a crime, so the rules for criminal prosecution may not apply.
But you're the law student and I'm the lowly coffee boy, so you tell me, Mr. Smarty Pants.
Posted by: Jacob at January 15, 2007 2:54 PM
It may have particular regulatory penalties, but there could certainly also be criminal violations, such as contributing to the delinquency of a minor. I admit that I have no idea what limitations exist on the powers of regulatory agencies as opposed to normal cops. When agencies assist in criminal cases, I am guessing that the restrictions are the same, and so entrapment would be a bar to prosecution, evidence would be suppressed if illegally obtained, etc. But if it doesn't actually go to a criminal case, agencies might be able to consider that sort of thing in their regulation, i.e. to revoke the liquor license, or refuse renewal of that license. I have no idea.
Has anyone else reading this taken Administrative Law? Blair?
Posted by: Barzelay at January 15, 2007 3:09 PM
My friend Radley is covering a case that involves this very issue, among a variety of other government abuses. A bar owner in Manassas Park, VA appears to have suffered a great deal of harrassment from the local police. One of the things they've done is get around the need to have search warrant by sending police along on "routine" inspections with the local alcohol board, effectively circumventing the owner's Fourth Amendment rights.
Radley's post on that particular offense is here, and there's lots more on the case available if you click on the Rack 'n Roll category on his sidebar.
Posted by: Jacob at January 15, 2007 3:26 PM
Entrapment tends to be difficult to prove. You have to prove you had no intention of violating the law and then the government induced you to have such an intention....and to follow up on it.
Barzelay, I see that you keep around your Vanderbilt ID. I do the same. I don't know why. Can you explain this to me?
Posted by: Ben at January 15, 2007 7:14 PM
I keep my Vandy ID, too...on my keys, actually. I think (um...okay, am certain) that it's because I'm lazy...the same reason I have a Huntsville library card and 10 year old giftcards in my purse. Once it goes in, it doesn't come out.
The upside is that I can still use it to get student discounts...or that's what I tell myself when I notice it and think about how silly it is to have a 2 year old student ID in such a prominent location. I haven't actually tried to get once since college.
Posted by: lsmsrbls at January 18, 2007 5:39 AM
hey,
i am a visitor from Hong Kong and now staying in Bay City, Michigan. I have similar exprience in purchasing alcohol lately too. When I went grocery shopping at Meijer. I tried to get a bottle of jack Daniels. but the cashier lady refuse to sell it to me. Because they don't accept foreign passport. I think this is crazy! Do you have any idea about what kind of ID they accept for travelers?
Posted by: esther at January 20, 2007 2:39 PM
They are supposed to accept foreign passports, but they always have the right to refuse to sell to anyone.
Posted by: Barzelay at January 21, 2007 11:05 PM
