Comments

1
But no link for context? Well, great. Excellent journalism there, champ.
2
not at you, dan, but this is super classist. sure, if you can afford a passport it's convenient, but they aren't cheap:
http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/fee…
3
If I spend $100 to get a passport, how the hell am I going to afford getting drunk on my 21st birthday? This is a fucking crisis.
4
@2 ..have your parents pay for it.
5
@3, a regular passport for a minor is only $85, not $100. And if a passport card will work (and it certainly should), those are only $35.
6
Ha... maybe in a big city. But, in my small hometown in Illinois, I was in a bar once that would not accept my passport ("we only accept drivers licenses"). I was totally confused -- I mean, it's more difficult to get a passport, right? And they are more difficult to forge, right? My guess is that the bartender had never actually seen a passport... This happened to a good friend of mine in Maine too (the liquor store only accepted a Maine driver's license).
7
Julie -- yeah, that person was probably just a dumbass who had never seen a passport before. I was in a bar/eatery in upstate NY with some foreign friends one time, and the guy tried using his French passport as I.D. to get some beers. The woman behind the bar was all, "um, I'm not sure we accept these. Do you have a U.S. passport?" Comprehension fail.
8
@7, I have no difficulty believing that. I routinely carry only my concealed carry permit as I'd (once again, it's actually a much better form of identification.) You'd be amazed at some of the dumbassed comments I get.
9
@ 7,8

I had a similar experience more locally, Pla-mor tavern in Maple Valley....
10
They won't issue you with the 21 yo ID (horizontal) instead of the 16+ yo ID (vertical) until you are more than 21 (DOB plus waiting time).

But you can get your passport earlier.
11
But they still have your birthdate, so they're no different from a license. You don't need to be 21 to get either?

Are all the bartenders retarded or blind in Seattle? I'm guessing both.
12
I don't get it - my passport has my date of birth right next to my photograph. So anyone who can do a little bit of math could figure out my age. . . . oh. You mean people who check IDs and ask a French passport-holder whether they have a US passport might not be able to handle the subtraction?
Jeez. What the hell is the point of showing ID anyway? I thought it was to check the person's age not to check whether it's you or not.
13
Yeah Luisita, I seems it may take a PhD to realize that. Dan is a little behind on this one.
14
@11, 12, 13: the Washington State Liquor Control Board is thinking about outlawing the sale of alcohol to people with horizontal licenses. Currently, in WA state, you cannot get a vertical license until you are 21, which means that it would be difficult for new 21-year-olds to purchase alcohol, both on their birthday and until they renew their license (unless they renew early). The point of the passport is that there is not a different orientation based on age, and they are an accepted form of ID to buy alcohol with. Therefore, if a passport is used on or after the 21st birthday, it'll be accepted. The issue is not about buying alcohol before age 21.

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
15
In a bar in Tacoma, my friend's passport was also not accepted as proof she was 21.
16
@14 So they're passing a law because people who work at Liquor stores can't read birthdates? I stand by my original statement.
17
This is the law we have in New Mexico, and it totally blows. They don't accept vertical licenses from other states, either.
18
Kind of sounds to me like this might be to thwart people giving their old (vertical) licenses to minors after they turn 21 and have a new license. Seems like an overly-blunt way to do it, though.
19
Everyone should have a passport anyway. Go check out the world, Bitches! (or at least Canada or Mexico)
20
Math: it's hard :(

I don't understand why it should be so hard. It's 2010, so you subtract 21 years from that. If someone was born before 1989, they're good. If they were born in 1989, check the date. If they were born after 1989, don't sell them alcohol.

It's magic!
21
@5: Sorry, Fnarf, but the WSLCB -- in their infinite wisdom -- have yet to rule that the passport card can be included in the list of "Acceptable Forms of Identification" so technically... no dice!

Like in any bureaucracy, it's all about the paperwork, baby!

(And trust me -- the guy checking your ID at the door is even more annoyed by those bullshit bureaucratic requirements than ya'll could ever even think of being!)
22
The most fun I had was traveling to Guadeloupe using only a US birth certificate. They don't care how old you are.
23
This sounds like a scam to make money. Every who has a vertical license and over 21 must go and spend 25$. Updating a license doesnt change the experation date.
I have been waiting until my license expires this month so I dont spend any extra money that could pay bills.
24
Of course, gotta say, this proposed law would actually make some sense if the DOL was going to change their policy so that minors licenses always expire on their 21st birthday regardless of when they got them...

(Anyone checked on that yet?)
25
I've never had a dricer's license and always have used a passport for ID. Classist? It's the just cost of having ID for me (and cheaper than owning a car!).

My favorite ID moment was buying beer at a Meijer's in Dayton Ohio for a graduation party and the woman at the front had no idea what a passport was. She asked me what country I was from and I had to point out that it was a US Passport. She even asked the woman behind me if she thought she should accept it as ID, at which point I kind of blew my stack and told her to call her manager.

Of course, now I'm all old and shit so I never encounter any problems with ID. Sigh.
26
This won't work. I have actually tried this.
I am a dual citizen, French and American. When I moved from France to American at age 19, I traveled with my US passport, which clearly showed my birth date.

I tried to go to a gay bar when I was 19, and showed my US passport when asked for ID. I was told that I couldn't be there because I was under 21 ! I was shocked - I had no idea, since I had been drinking in France since the age of, oh, 8.
27
In Texas, we have vertical ones until 21, and after they are horizontal. However, to eliminate the need for math, at the top mine (and all under 21 IDs) say: "UNDER 21 UNTIL 05/02/2010". Or whatever your birthday is. That's mine, so I'll be 21 in three weeks.

So you don't even have to do math. Just know what date it is. lol.

People here regularly just keep their under 21 licenses until they expire, even if they are over 21. It just makes more sense.
28
The other day a bar wouldn't accept a friend of mine's permanent resident card, and the number of holograms on those things make passports look like high school ASB cards. If this says nothing else, it's that liquor boards have successfully stricken terror into the hearts of possibly otherwise reasonable people.

And as #25 stated, having a passport is hardly classist, especially compared to obtaining driver's license.
29
@ 8: So when you show your concealed-carry permit, 5280, is that the same as saying, "I'm probably packin', dude, so ya better gimme what I want, y'hear?" LOL.;=)
30
I'm sure that's how it's perceived, @29. I haven't been carded for booze in eons (gray hair will do that), but I use it as ID at banks, to fly on airplanes, and so on, and as I said, the reactions are interesting to say the least.
31
@9: Your first problem was that you were at the Pla-Mor. Even the giant piranha (that's now dead) isn't worth it.

I saw a friend's passport get denied in Issaquah because the guy working the counter didn't know how to tell if it was real or not. I then watched her have a full-on freak out outside the gas station a la Suicidal Tendancies' "Institutionalized" because she couldn't buy a pack of smokes on her birthday.

I almost wasn't sold beer in Florida last month because the cashier couldn't grasp the concept that Washington state puts a slash in their printed 0's on drivers' licenses to differentiate them from a capital O. Five fucking minutes of a lady hemming and hawing over the unknown concept of a zero with a slash in it. Jesus fucking Christ, drop into the sea already.
32
@31 That is retarded. All grocery stores and gas stations should have a little reference book that has full color examples of each state's driver's licenses, front and back, like a lot of the places here do.

And how could he not tell a passport was real? Don't they all have little reflective strips and whatnot? I don't have one myself, but it's usually fairly easy to spot a real, official document due to the watermarks, etc.
33
@32: you're placing an awful lot of faith in whomever Chevron hired to sling smokes and Sparks in Issaquah. He'd never seen one, and even though it was on the list behind the counter of "acceptable forms of ID", he couldn't figure out how to tell if it was real or not. I used to work somewhere that required me to card people all day long, and it was generally pretty easy to figure out what was and wasn't a real ID (and I took great joy in confiscating fakes). The ones you had to watch for were the Army IDs that you get if you join under 18-- most places accepted my friend's when he was 17 and enlisted without even looking-- he bought beer and smokes with impunity.
34
I once got into a bar with a combination of my blood donor card and student ID. kind of helped the bouncer was an alum at the same college, i guess. but i don't drink anyhow, so i guess i didnt do much to thwart the system
35
@ Timrrrr ; The WSLCB does accept the passport as id. It is listed as item "C".
36
What dan, no credit for me? I posted the passport idea as the first comment on the other article...
37
@11, I'd say that this has more to do with bartenders in Yakima than in Seattle. Or maybe I'm just another urban elitist Seattleite.

But seriously, as I commented in the other thread on this subject, is it really that fucking important to keep alcohol away from minors that these wastes of our tax dollars have to waste time($) thinking of this?
And regarding all the comments about different parts of the country only accepting local ID, WTF? When I was a cashier we had a book behind the counter with up to date pictures of every state and territories valid ID's, and I believe it even had a DOB locator for each. You would think that every person selling alcohol would have that handy for a point of referrence so they could get every eligible lush dollar available.

Where are the Tea Party fucks on this? Seriously, they don't want to pay for health care, don't want to pay taxes at all, complain about governemt waste left and right. This seems like a no brainer to me. Maybe we spend too much of our tax money on enforcement of petty laws, which only cuts into stuff we should be spending money on, like healthcare, public transit, our schools and libraries, not a bunch of fucking nanny nonsense.
38
Was in California for Christmas this year, at some shitty chain restaurant. They wouldn't serve our over 21 friend with a passport (she was visiting from B.C.), because it didn't have her height and weight or something else leotarded?!?!? Apparently the picture wasn't good enough.
39
The real problem is that local liquor boards have sellers running scared. The board shuts you down for a few days or fines you several thousand dollars because of underage selling, and you (as the bar/restaurant/liquor store owner) are up shit creek. Those types of establishments don't have the kind of profit margins where those kinds of losses can be easily absorbed.

I've only ever seen the counter books in cities with big college populations, and I can't really be surprised if a general-store owner in Nowheresville, Nebraska doesn't have one.
40
This would never be an issue in Madison as all the drinking youth have fakes...although those are just as expensive as passports
41
FWIW, you can also use a military ID basically anywhere that you could use a driver's license, so it's not just passports as an exception to the rule.
42
come to canada eh.
drinking age is 19 and we take any gov't issued anything that is authentic. we have the international book of ID to double check, and our math is pretty good eh.
43
The whole logic of the 21-year-old drinking age is flawed, imho. The ostensible purpose is to prevent traffic deaths from drinking and driving by inexperienced/immature drivers.

Under the law when I was growing up, the drinking age was 18. So, when kids hit 18, they'd go party, and then have accidents. Now, the age is 21. So, what happens when folks hit 21? They go drinking, and inevitably there are accidents.

The problem, as I see it, is with inexperienced drinkers more than with inexperienced drivers. The solution is obvious, if you'll allow me this train of thought. Lower the drinking age to less than the minimum driving age! Let kids get a little experience with social drinking BEFORE they get a driver's license. Yeah, okay, I'm not a practical person, yadda yadda. Still, don't you think it would make sense to incorporate alcohol education into sex education classes? Prohibition doesn't have a great track record.

Kids in ethnic families which have traditions of serving them wine at holiday dinners, as far as I can see, don't have more unhealthy attitudes about alcohol than those brought up prohibited from drinking. In fact, and this is just anecdotal, I think they have fewer problems.
44
@21: I just looked for updated info, and it appears passports are now acceptable IDs. This page was retrieved May 15th, 2010:

http://liq.wa.gov/licensing/license-info…
45
It appears this hates my link. Here's a shortened version:
http://bit.ly/9iwF4l

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