Hacker News Reader

Comment by arprocter | Hacker News Reader

Interesting that they mention Boston - along with NC it's the only place where my green card has been refused as an acceptable form of ID. I have no idea why a federally issued photo ID with my name, DoB and photo on it apparently isn't enough to prove my age.

As a Brit, it amuses me that there are apparently so many balding 20 year olds with grey beards in the US that I am suspicious.

They also don't seem to like my SO's GA driver's license in Boston.

Edit - I should add that the second time we went back to the place which wouldn't take my green card as ID they didn't ID us at all

View on HN

Boston is the real deal when it comes to ID crackdowns. About 150k college students so some tens of thousands of fake IDs, plus a history of blue laws. I believe that legally they are even allowed to refuse legitimate out-of-state US drivers' licenses (most places do not do this, but they can). Foreign passports also can be refused. And that's not even counting the notorious "box scanners" which, to my knowledge, are yet to be beaten reliably with a fake...

Good to know - I've yet to have my passport refused anywhere, but it's annoying to have to carry it around, let alone potentially lose it on a night out

A document that permits someone to enter the country isn't acceptable to prove their age. Wacky.

Meanwhile in the UK I have had many places accept my expired US license from a rural state most have not even heard of. Once at a supermarket, a cashier asked me for ID and I absent mindedly said "No thanks". He was satisfied with that answer, and I didn't realize what I had said until I had already left with my drinks in hand.

The UK is pretty relaxed.

If you're 16+ you can drink beer, wine or cider with your meal if it's bought by an adult. And in that scenario it would be rare to be asked to prove you aren't 15

I'm a 28 year old British man who is still regularly id'd. It's not all that relaxed in my experience...

I think it depends a lot on the town you're in and how old/young you look

Some of the blue laws are really strange.

I remember one year we ended up driving to NH to fill the trunk - due to the day that Xmas fell on nowhere in MA was allowed to sell booze, even though it was a regular business day

Story time.

Charlotte North Carolina is adjacent to the South Carolina state line, where the alcohol taxes are lower. A few years ago, the NC Alcohol Beverage Control Commission sent an officer to sit in the parking lot of one of the beer & wine stores located just across the border. He would radio the vehicle license plates to his buddies waiting along Interstate 77, who would pull the cars over and charge the driver with bootlegging (still a crime, even in the 21st century).

The South Carolina highway patrol took great offense to this and sent several officers to the store and explained to the NC ABC officer that he was out of his jurisdiction and would he kindly go home and not come back.

All Star Liquor Express on I-5 just south of the Oregon border to California.

There's nothing there. In fact the exit says "No Services" and indeed there's none.

But there is a big liquor store, that also has a sign on the front door saying "We will not knowingly sell to retail customers" (I'd estimate that 99% of their customers are retail, buying their liquor for about 2/3 the price of Oregon liquor prices, or coming up on half of the Washington price).

You're also not protected from liability if you accept a MA non-driver ID. There is a separate liquor license which is acceptable but it's not acceptable for most of the things you'd want ID for so I don't think most people have them.

Friends and I went to a store once in California. Their sticker on the counter - YOU MUST BE BORN BEFORE [DATE] - was out of date. The clerk couldn't do the math or accept that the sticker was out of date. That was a bizarre experience.

There's a reason Ben Franklin moved to Philly.

Ben 'Silence Dogood' Franklin - could've be one of the first fakes?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com