At my two favorite stores the cashier has to scan my ID or the cash register no worko. I have my wallet out for my credit card anyway, so no big deal.
Guessing someone's age is a slippery slope. Sure, someone who's in their 60s, it's pretty obvious they're over 21. However, at what point is it not so obvious? 30? 40? 50? If you tell your staff to just card everyone then you eliminate the guess work. Yeah, they probably look pretty stupid carding someone who's in their 90s, but better to look dumb then run the risk of getting popped for serving an underage customer. Sure, it gives me a chuckle when I get carded (I'll be 70 this June), but I understand the underlying thinking. It's no skin off my nose.
There's probably a camera looking over the cashier's shoulder. My Rite-Aid checks my ID every time, and they hold it so the camera can see. Policy probably set by corporate legal department.
I thought this was going to be a post about finding some beers on the shelves at Bev Mo old enough to drink.
Maybe it’s your new skin care routine? https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tod...aging-eye-cream-is-over-40-off-133745786.html (This ad came up out of no where, honestly.)
Northeast grocery chain Wegmans does, too. (One time, the kid behind me in line started laughing and said "You're asking HIM for his ID?". It did make me sorry that I showed him where the date code was on the beer he was buying.)
I know that here, Angel Stadium does the same thing. I saw them card my 60 something dad before. As for myself, I’m well past 21 and I rarely get carded. But kind of like OP, when I do, for some reason it just feels like a damn nuisance. That said, I totally get it. Businesses don’t want to risk getting busted by an undercover ABC agent. I know that here in California, you get something like a $10,000 fine, and then I believe you also get a strike against against you. After that if it happens again, your alcohol license gets suspended for at least a month, followed by losing your liquor license in full if it happens again. Life is very controlled nowadays. Damn near everywhere you go, you are being video recorded. The golden age of innocence is over. “You want this beer, grandpa? Hell yeah I’m going to card you.” And that’s just the way it is.
It's policy because it places all fault on the employee and not the business. You sign that shit when you start working. If they sell to an underage person and the written policy is to card everyone, and the business can prove on camera that most other employees are carded, the employee at fault gets hit with the consequences and the business goes back like nothing happened. "What happened to Nate" "Sold to an underage kid" "Dumbass" 3 types of people are offended by being asked for ID: underaged or just turned 21, tourists (really just Aussies and Kiwis), people who've never been questioned in their lives that don't have ID on them.
Often, I buy beer at the Wegman's in Woodbridge NJ and most of the sales clerks go thru the motions. They glance at my diver's license and sometimes apologize. However, there's one woman whose perhaps ten years younger than me, who actually reads my birth date even although I announce "1953" and she's seen me many times before. She is annoying.
My local Kroger requires ID of everyone to check out. When I was 18, I was against ID check once I turned 21, I didn't care anymore. Go figure. What really annoys me is to have to show ID and sign a log to buy cold medicine.
As a way to protect themselves, larger businesses are more likely to implement policies regarding ID for alcohol purchases no matter how the buyer looks. We have the same ID policy where I work where we ID anyone purchasing booze. If it’s ageist, the ACLU might be able to help.
