87 year old man gets ID'd

[Joe]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/6296637.stm

Haha.. thats funny.

[ZeroX]

Yeah This guy is totally underage.

[iago]

After getting caught (and fined $2500 and shut down for a busy weekend), the vendor I worked at took on a policy of ID'ing everybody, period.  Just to be fair and not to single people out, we didn't care how old you looked. 

There are a lot of bars in my city (country, in fact) that do the same thing.  It's partly for age and partly because they scan the name through their database of people who are barred to keep out violent customers.  If you were ever kicked out or caught with a weapon, you're barred from every Canadinn across the country.

<edit> in fact, that's their exact policy:

"To further limit any element of doubt, staff at the Acomb store are required to ask anyone buying alcohol to confirm that they are over 21."

So it's really not a big deal.  They have the same policy as many places here.

And no, a buspass is NOT legal ID. 

[Screenor]

Ahahaha. I love it!

[Rule]

After getting caught (and fined $2500 and shut down for a busy weekend), the vendor I worked at took on a policy of ID'ing everybody, period.  Just to be fair and not to single people out, we didn't care how old you looked. 

There are a lot of bars in my city (country, in fact) that do the same thing.  It's partly for age and partly because they scan the name through their database of people who are barred to keep out violent customers.  If you were ever kicked out or caught with a weapon, you're barred from every Canadinn across the country.

<edit> in fact, that's their exact policy:

"To further limit any element of doubt, staff at the Acomb store are required to ask anyone buying alcohol to confirm that they are over 21."

So it's really not a big deal.  They have the same policy as many places here.

And no, a buspass is NOT legal ID. 

Regardless of what store policy is, you'd have to be stupid to ask that man if he is over 21 or to produce ID.  There is no "element of doubt" if you've got half a brain.

[Furious]

After getting caught (and fined $2500 and shut down for a busy weekend), the vendor I worked at took on a policy of ID'ing everybody, period.  Just to be fair and not to single people out, we didn't care how old you looked. 

There are a lot of bars in my city (country, in fact) that do the same thing.  It's partly for age and partly because they scan the name through their database of people who are barred to keep out violent customers.  If you were ever kicked out or caught with a weapon, you're barred from every Canadinn across the country.

<edit> in fact, that's their exact policy:

"To further limit any element of doubt, staff at the Acomb store are required to ask anyone buying alcohol to confirm that they are over 21."

So it's really not a big deal.  They have the same policy as many places here.

And no, a buspass is NOT legal ID. 

Regardless of what store policy is, you'd have to be stupid to ask that man if he is over 21 or to produce ID.  There is no "element of doubt" if you've got half a brain.

There doesn't have to be, policy is policy.  I ID'd everyone that came through my line when I worked at a grocery store.  Regardless of how people appear, if you like your job you follow the policy.

[Joe]

Their policy is just fine by me. I was more or less laughing at the fact that BBC thought this was news-worthy.

[Rule]

After getting caught (and fined $2500 and shut down for a busy weekend), the vendor I worked at took on a policy of ID'ing everybody, period.  Just to be fair and not to single people out, we didn't care how old you looked. 

There are a lot of bars in my city (country, in fact) that do the same thing.  It's partly for age and partly because they scan the name through their database of people who are barred to keep out violent customers.  If you were ever kicked out or caught with a weapon, you're barred from every Canadinn across the country.

<edit> in fact, that's their exact policy:

"To further limit any element of doubt, staff at the Acomb store are required to ask anyone buying alcohol to confirm that they are over 21."

So it's really not a big deal.  They have the same policy as many places here.

And no, a buspass is NOT legal ID. 

Regardless of what store policy is, you'd have to be stupid to ask that man if he is over 21 or to produce ID.  There is no "element of doubt" if you've got half a brain.

There doesn't have to be, policy is policy.  I ID'd everyone that came through my line when I worked at a grocery store.  Regardless of how people appear, if you like your job you follow the policy.

This is why I generally don't like people in bureaucracies.  Often they're not capable of making intelligent decisions themselves, so they blindly adhere to policies that were obviously designed for a reason and obviously have their flaws.  These people aren't creative, they aren't insightful, and they're not independent thinkers: they're not the types of people who come up with the rules.  There are many situations where discretion in a decision is essential, but because these cases aren't covered by a particular guideline or rule, they are dismissed unfairly.  For example, suppose a student misses an university exam because he was caught up in a bank robbery.  Also suppose that the university has the strict policy that the only acceptable reason for missing an exam is a medical one.  Is it right that this student should fail the exam?  What was the policy designed for?

You have to think about why the store has that policy.  It is to prevent under-aged people from buying liquor.  Now from a logical perspective, a face like that man's is more of a valid ID than if a customer that seemed about 24 years old provided 10 pieces of authentic seeming legal ID.  So the likelihood of selling him liquor when he is under-aged is less than what is on average the likelihood of selling a random person who provides government ID liquor, and that person being under-aged.  Effectively by letting him buy liquor you have fulfilled the probability guarantee that the ID policy provides.

If you get fired for using such an argument, then your employer is an idiot.  If you can't tell that this man isn't underage and you haven't thought about what the policy was designed for, then you're an idiot. If you use your judgment and decide to overlook store policy, and it turns out you used poor judgment, then you should be fired.

If you keep being a drinking bird, you'll stay where you are for the rest of your life.

[MyndFyre]

Regardless of what store policy is, you'd have to be stupid to ask that man if he is over 21 or to produce ID.  There is no "element of doubt" if you've got half a brain.

Recently, in Arizona, a 29-year-old man impersonated a 12-year-old in order to be admitted to a school where he molested at least one child.

Age is sometimes easy to disguise, apparently.

[iago]

Rule, you're right. 

The problem is, it's a slippery slope..  People who are 20 hate being asked for ID.  People who are 30 sometimes still look young, and get angry if you ask for ID.  Some people who are 40 appear to be young and get very angry/hostile if asked for ID, and so on.  There's a line that has to be drawn, at what point do you stop ID'ing people?  And believe me (I speak from experience), there's no good line to draw.  People will get mad showing ID and people who are underage won't get ID'ed at the same time, because of how they look.

That leaves you with a quandary: You're going to piss people off or sell to underage kids.   Period.  No policy is fair, you will have problems.

We got caught because somebody who I would have estimated as being mid-30's was under 18 (luckily, it wasn't me who served him, they had to pay a $1500 fine).  It was a shitty situation.  There's no way that guy should have been that young, but appearances can be deceiving. 

So where do you cut it off?  We decided that the lesser of two evils (to be on the safe side) was to ID everybody.  That way, we're guaranteed to find the kids, while at the same time we didn't single somebody out because he's 45 and looks 25.  It was the only way to be both safe and fair. 

Call it what you want, but it wasn't a bureaucratic decision -- it was the best sensible decision we could think of.   

[Omen]

Yeah This guy is totally underage.

haha, that's my nephew.

[disco]

Damn teenagers...