F***ing Sting

[Brynhild]

Just got a call from by best friend - an alcohol sting went through the gas station she works at, and she'd didn't pass so she's quitting at the end of her shift. Fucking sting. Why do they have to try to trick and punish us poor folk working sucky jobs just trying to make ends meet? If the kids want alcohol, they'll figure out a way to get alcohol.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

If the kids want alcohol, they'll figure out a way to get alcohol.

So that makes it okay to just sell underage people alcohol without carding them or doing any kind of age check?

I think the drinking laws are pretty stupid, but the law is the law and you do have to follow it.

[justZu]

I know a guy that got fired because he let someone walk away from his stand carrying three beers. Yeah, a person over the age of 21 bought three beers and didn't have their friend carry the third one. (it is stadium policy - two beers per transaction) The customers were secret shoppers testing him and he failed. Getting fired for selling beer to people legally old enough to drink hardly seems fair to me.

[Jade Panurple]

The stings are absolutely necessary. I just had to do a test and pay a bit of money to get TABC certified so I can work in a restaurant that serves alcohol. I'm a hostess. The laws are necessary. I would feel terrible if I served alcohol to someone, especially a minor, and they got hurt or hurt someone else. Your friend should have taken the small amount of time to ask for i.d. I know I would have. The huge fine, and the guilty conscience is a large price to pay in exchange for a small amount of time.

[Brynhild]

So that makes it okay to just sell underage people alcohol without carding them or doing any kind of age check?

No, it doesn't. But if they look over thirty, then most people I know don't card. I don't think it's right to sell alcohol or cigs to those underage, but I don't think stings do much good overall. It's not attacking the root problem, it doesn't make kids not want alcohol, and for the employee, it's always going to be the one person you don't card that turns out to be undercover.

Half the people I card are happy I carded them. The other half are annoyed and angry that I dare have the nerve to think them young anymore, and they shove their ID into my face. When I first took my cashiering job, the very first person I carded was extremely upset that I dared call into question her age. I still card them, 'cause I can't judge age worthy anything, but that doesn't mean I support people who deliberately try to mislead me.

[SuperB]

I'm in favor of the laws. I don't care that kids will attempt to get it where ever they can, they shouldn't and if more clerks carded or enforced the laws they wouldn't have so much opportunity.
Kids can't handle it. Plain and simple. If they lowered the drinking age, we'd have increased drunk driving, increased teen pregnancy, increased alcohol deaths...etc. These things are high enough as it is.

[bigjimaz]

Your friend should consider themselves lucky if they were not involved with the actual sale. In PA., where I live, (and have been unsuccessfully stung) if you sell cigarettes or alcohol to anyone underage, even if you think they are old enough, but without carding them, you go to jail. Simple law. Simple solution to not getting arrested. Do your job every time.

I sympathize with your friend, especially if they weren't involved directly in the sale, but had the job been done as they were taught, they wouldn't be in the predicament they are in.

[Lyse]

I was doing a volunteer thing at Safeco where our group ran one of the concession stands and then got a split of the profit. We were told to ID anyone that looked 30ish or younger. It's a bit busy, guy comes up and orders two beers. Took a quick glance, and asked him for his id while I grabbed the cups and started the beers. I look back up to check on his id, and he and his friends are staring at me all googly-eyed. I took a closer look, and yeah he was probably closer to 35 than 30, but once I ask for ID, I can't back down. He and his friends were sure I was joking around at first. When he realized that I was serious, he gave me a huge grin and said, "Honey, you just made my entire day" and then proceeded to hand over his retired military id. Turns out he was closer to 45!

Luckily, once he realized that I had asked because I honestly thought that he was much younger he and his friends were great about it. I think that he got some teasing about being a babyface and having the beer girl flirting with him, though!

----------------------------------------------
"My very first day on the job, the boss asked me to make a fresh pot of coffee. Of course, I walked right out the door. He and those other sexist pigs at Starbucks can kiss my ass!"

[Crazeyal]

Sorry. No sympathy. Hate me, throw barbs yadda yadda yadda. It's hard to deal with the nonsense. It's hard to deal with the kids pretending/using adults/stealing. It's hard when you havea zero tolerance boss, who also has a zero support function when a customer bitches.

But everyone knows this.

Anyone who gets caught not checking ID's knows the consequences. If your boss tells you NOT to check, you are covered. Otherwise it is your OWN DAMN FAULT!

Cursing about the people who check is the same bull$@#! that the SC pulls when a clerk asks for ID!!! It's the law. Bother your politicians. It sucks your friend lost her job. SHE did it. No-one else.

[TNT]

At the local fair a few years ago, Anheuser-Busch had a display where they gave away samples of one of their beers. Every single person was carded... it didn't matter if they were 102.

I show my membership card every time I walk into the gym I belong to... I wouldn't have a problem with showing my ID every time I walked into a bar.

[MMATM]

Actually, ideally the drinking age should be eliminated or at least lowered, as it is in many other countries. Sure, we'd lose a generation between 14-21 or so (or 18-21 if it were just lowered) who would abuse it horribly (right after the change) but after that people would begin to grow up with it.

I'm not advocating underage drinking, but no matter the laws in place (even on "dry" campuses, as I am a college student and can attest to this) the 18-21 age group is already drinking, practically unhindered, if they are so inclined. Period. Don't even try to argue that "well carding keeps that from happening" because anyone under 21 that knows anyone 21+ as a friend has access to whatever they want anyway. No amount of carding is going to keep the 21 year olds from giving alcohol to their friends, and the primary reason (possibly tied for first with peer pressure) to drink illegally is because suddenly it is available after years of being forbidden. People that grow up with alcohol (traditional Italian families for example) and have developed knowledge and responsibility regarding it are far less likely to abuse it and even less likely to cause trouble because of it.

The same applies to sex and "abstinence-only" teaching, but that's a topic for another thread, possibly on Fratching due to its nature.

The point I'm trying to make is that the laws against drinking until you're 21 are what cause the problems. This is not to say that the sting was wrong. They are entirely right to sting people because while the laws be the source of the problems, until they are changed they have to be followed or risk loss of employment.

[/heavily-opinionated-ness]

[HowMayIHelpMe?]

longish reply here (a somewhat personal manifesto on said topic)

Most of us wouldn't have these troubles if the various managements where we all worked actually stood behind us, and came down with the hammer, hard, on those customers who give us hassles for carding them.

I've been through this plenty of times in my life (20+ years in retail), and the fact that customers are allowed to spew venom in our direction for carding them without repercussions, swift and brutal punishment, or imprisonment has always made me sick to my stomach. People know that we have to card them, and they still give us grief. In my kingdom I would get Draconian on these wastes of flesh and blood, believe that.

Brynhild, while the law is the law (not that we have to agree with it, we just have to follow it) I sympathize with you. This is the nightmare that many of us have had, that one time we cut someone a break, more out of merely trying to not get hassled by a stranger one more time than out of any lack of diligence on our part and that one time happens to be the time it turns out to be some agent stooge willing to play pretend for their paycheck.

Yeah, I've got some strong feelings about this. Can you tell?

For me and mine? I've carded youngsters for cigarettes - a somewhat similar situation. But really, I only complied with the carding policy because I would get into trouble otherwise. If there was no law? I'd have sold plenty of cigarettes to plenty of young high schoolers trying to get by. Honestly, why should I care if they want to ruin their health? It says right on the damn package what those things will do to you. If you're actually able to read, and you see that the package of cigarettes in your hand that you're about to buy will make you sick with cancer, and you still hand me some money for it, that means you have already determined (beyond any logical arguments that I, a stranger who has no business in the first place giving you unsolicited health advice, could provide) that you wish to do this to yourself. I do not own your body - you do! I'm not your mother or father - they're the ones who ought to be bringing down the hammer of doom on you for this, not me. And speaking of the parents of would-be, underage cigarette and booze purchasers, where in the hell are they? I've got something for their weak, non-child-disciplining asses, too.

Swinging back to the vice that's on the table for discussion; I find that the what I've said above applies also to booze.

Sure, I'll card you. But strictly and only because the law says so And in an ideal world, my kingdom, if you hassled me for carding you under these circumstances, I'll jail your ass. I'll put you in a prison so awful, so terrifying that Amnesty International will start an awareness campaign about what I've done to you.

[Crazeyal]

Uh.. Because said teenagers are NOT ADULTS and are influenced by media, peer pressure and slick advertising campaigns? Making people responsible for their own choices is one thing. But when the rules of society dictate that people under a certain age are not responsible enough to make their own decisions about a DRUG...

Over. Done. Finito.

Your child? Your household? Your decision.

Your business and someone ELSE'S child?
Not a very good picture you draw there...

[Sandman]

MMATM, I know the feeling. The college I go to just re-opened it's on-campus bar this past semester due to the rising age of the college population.

I say it just opened up a huge problem, but that's for fratching

[Luna]

Despite it being work related - this is a very touchy subject regarding breaking current laws. No one has gone overboard with any comments and I thank you all for that.

However, I am going to close this thread and further discussion should be taken to Fratching.