Why do airport bars card everyone?
 

I'm 39 years old. I'm balding. I don 't look very young. If I walk into a regular bar in the USA and order a beer, the chances of the bartender asking for my ID are somewhere between 2 and 3 percent.

But if I go to an airport bar and order a beer, I get asked for ID about 50% of the time. Why is that? Why are airport bars so worried about underage drinking? It's not like I'm going to be flying the plane.

I often fly out of Las Vegas, and some of the airport bars there just card everyone, including senior citizens. It's absurd.

I'm not going to commend them on having a strict "responsible drinking" policy of carding every single customer. If airport bars were responsible, they wouldn't be trying upsell everyone on extra shots of alcohol with every order.

I can only think of two reasons why they ask everyone for ID. #1 - They know that you must have ID on you because you are flying, so they figure there's no harm to ask for it, it's not like you forgot your ID that day. #2 - They don't care about annoying older customers by asking for their IDs, because they don't rely much on repeat business and they have a monopoly in the airport, so they don't care about customer service.

Lots of places card everyone. It's easier to train personnel and frankly it's not a bad thing: 1) Either you are under-age or 2) it's a compliment!

... or they don't trust their employees to think

I hate to tell you, but it's not always a compliment. Some people actually look at it as stupidity as opposed to a compliment. Just to give you an example, I took my dad (in his 80's) grocery shopping. He had picked up a bottle of wine. The clerk insisted on him showing his ID, which he didn't have with him. He had to give me the bottle of wine. I had to show my ID (I'm obviously over 21) and had to pay for his wine... They didn't care what we did after we left the store, but their policy had to be followed.

There is a point where common sense should come in...

HMS Host is the company that owns restaurants, concessions and most bars in US airports. It is their corporate policy for employees to card everybody, no exceptions. I learned this in SRQ where I witnessed a man in his mid 60's get carded. The employee explained to the man that corporate stipulates that forgetting to ask for ID once on anyone is an automatic termination if caught. It is a waste of the employees time and an insult to their intelligence and just gets retired customers potentially upset. Same thing happened in ORDs Red Carpet Club where the Bar is run by HMS. Several in their 50's were getting really mad. Only in fantasy land do people in these age ranges take it as a compliment. The customer in Sarasota couldn't believe it. If this happens to me when I am 65 thirty years from now, I would probably cancel the order tell the server she works for a stupid company and just wait till I board the plane to order a drink if that is possible in the future.

It could be worse.

I'm 36 and get carded buying cold medicine at the local grocery store.:rolleyes:

This also could be because of a particular bar's liability insurance. If they tell their agent that they will ID everybody without exception then the chances of serving someone underage are greatly reduced (left to the standard good fake ID or someone buying for someone else). This may result in a lower rate; if the insurance agent/company finds that this isn't really the process then the rates might shoot up.

Also, some states or cities/towns may have regulations that say something along the lines of "everyone who appears to be under 30 years of age must show an ID to purchase alcohol".

It likely is just easier to ID everyone. I have been to places where a manager could approve the sale so some places do have some sanity in their policies.

Lastly, it can be quite difficult/expensive to get a liquor license in some places; better to be safe than sorry when it comes to the monetary investment (likely over $200,000 in parts of Boston).

That's not an age thing, that's the government tracking your purchase because if you purchase enough of these medicines you can use them in the manufactuer of meth. There are cold medicines which don't contain pseudoephedrine that don't require you to show ID.

if the entity has been busted for selling to underage, they usually are forced to enter into a consent decree and card everyone.

i look an extremely youthful 74(and handsome), and have a full head of hair, yet at certain liquor stores, i get carded.

I have so many getting carded stories that I won't even go into. I am obviously well over 21, or 31, etc, so when someone asks to see my ID I politely tell them to go forth and replicate. If someone is so stupid that they cannot see that I'm 'permitted' to consume alcohol, they are too stupid to be anywhere near me.

I'm quite surprised/disappointed at the hostility towards an employee doing their job, likely following mandates of their employers, enforcing the law. If you don't like it, call the manager/corporate HQ. Life's too short to be so petty, IMHO.

I find it amusing. If you get mad at people doing dumb things, your life is going to suck.

It's even worse at Target. If you buy anything with a minimum age on it - alcohol, M rated video games, canned air (people get high off of it? :confused:), etc, their register forces them to scan the barcode on the back of your drivers license, so everyone gets carded.

I'm 25 (and don't really look any older than that) and I can't remember the last time I was carded for buying alcohol at a bar or grocery store. But sure enough at Target, I had to give them my ID to scan when I bought L.A. Noire a couple months ago. It made me feel like I was 17 again ;)

For many places, it's an artifact of liquor control laws. You get ruinously heavy fines in many places for serving underage customers, so businesses just cover their butts by carding everyone to provide a legal defense if someone slips through the cracks.

If the store I am at requires me to ask for ID from everyone buying liquor without exception, then the truly stupid one is the one that would sell someone without seeing their ID is really the stupid one. The ignorent disrespectful one would be the one that can't respect this.

I suspect a lot of the people here who have a problem showing their ID are of the same mindset as those who will continue to talk on their cellphones after being told by a flight attendant to shut them off; their justification is that of the millions of takeoffs/landings there has never been a crash attributable to cellphone use.

**only a rumor**
 

I heard a rumor that HMS got sued for age discrimination for not checking the ID of someone who was obviously over 21.

Again only a rumor.

Why do male dogs...... ;)

It is worse-it happens to me and I'm 53 :eek: