19 replies to this topic

[M J W J]

I was once with my mum in tescos and they refused to serve her. They asked for ID from both of us. I have a picture driving licence so was able to prove my age but my mum didn't. She did point out that it was her 19 year old (at the time) son who was standing next to her (me) and my mum looks older than I do. She had to leave the supermarket without any alcohol.

 

I went back in afterwards and bought it for her from a different checkout.

 

I've been ID'd a few times when I worked at wilkos by wilkinson's staff despite producing a staff discount card.

 

Its also mad that you have to be 18 to buy scissors but there is no restriction on power tools.

 

If you find somewhere is IDing you and you are obviously older than 18, it is most likely they have been caught serving underaged people. My local branch of weather spoons IDs everyone. They refused service to my dad as he had no ID on him. They also may be aware of mystery shoppers and people sent in by the police. We got this at Wilkos a few times but we always caught them out.

[AVV IT]

I went into the co-op last week to buy a bottle of wine. The young lady behind the checkout looked at the wine, then looked at me, then pressed a button under the counter as she explained that she couldn't sell me alcohol. "Is that because I look uncertain 18?" I asked excitedly. She proceeded to look at me as if I was insane and said "Erm no, it's because I'm under 18!!"

I was gutted!!!

[maieth]

Bottom line, the policy (Ask 21) is sound in most circumstances, but this is some dumb, ill-trained checkout worker that doesn't understand the simple workings of it. Yes, she has to ask if someone is under 21, but only if she thinks they look under 25. 

Sounds pretty typical of BnQ's hiring policy from my experience.

[Seba5tian]

I work for ASDA and we have to "challenge 25" we get mystery shoppers all the time and I'm only trained on checkouts, if I don't ID a mystery shopper (who could be 25) I can't serve people, so god knows what I'd be doing instead! No work for me! I usually go on the basis of if you look older than me (I'm 20) I wont ID you.. but even that won't work all the time. It's such a grey area that some checkout operators (most of them old dullards) just ID anyone younger than them.

I once ID'd a 33 year old guy and he got pretty rowdy with me, but in all honesty without his beard he would have looked early 20's.. I made sure to point that out to him and he soon trotted off.
Another thing we have to do is if a group of friends come into the store, even if their mates aren't buying the alcohol and have a separate order.. We have to ID them as well. 
It's frankly embarrassing and I'm only doing it to keep my job, which funnily enough I take very unseriously thanks to all the stupid policies. 

[zinzan]

In the U.S. I've seen servers wearing badges or signs up that say "We ID anyone under 30" for beer purchases at sports events, etc.