California bars sue underage drinkers
 

SAN FRANCISCO — Bar and liquor store owners are fighting back against underage drinkers that cost them thousands of dollars in profit when they are caught.

San Francisco has no shortage of bars or underage drinkers who try to sneak into them, usually with the help of a fake ID or a valid drivers license they got from a friend. The problem is that if they get caught, they don’t get into much legal trouble.

In California, an underage drinker faces a $250 fine. The bar, on the other hand, stands to lose thousands of dollars and even its liquor license if more than one underage drinker is caught there.

A group of San Francisco bar owners is fighting back by taking underage drinkers to court and making them pay for lost wages and profits. The owner of one bar, Amante's, took a 20-year-old woman to small claims court and won a $5,000 judgment after she used a friend's ID to get in, resulting in a $3,000 fine for the bar.

“I don’t want to ruin her life,” said Amante’s owner Michael DiBenedetti. “But I do want to make it so [she] thinks seriously about doing this, not just to us, but to any bar out there because it hurts so much.”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120594,00.html

I am sure underage folks won't like it but it makes sence.

Hello??? If you're too stupid to realize the person on the ID is not the one getting in with it or that a fake is a fake, sorry, but I can't feel too sorry about your "lost business." Try actually carding people and doing your job if you value your liquor license, dumbasses.

If they keep doing stuff like that its going to make it hard for kids to drink and that doesn't seem fair.

Have you seen the stack of fakes that most bouncers will have by the end of the night that they have taken off underagers? Just a question, but have you ever tried to card people at the bar before? Might want to try it before telling other people how stupid they are when they can't catch it.

In Washington State, not only does the underager get fined, but the bar, and also the server .

That's usually true for all states, though laws may vary.

So as I understand it, some of you are saying that it is wrong for businesspeople to try to protect themselves from people who are breaking the law -- and implicating the business and its employees?

If you were one of the business owners -- or one of the servers who is fined -- you might think differently.

If you run an establishment large enough that you have a "stack of fakes" at the end of the night, perhaps you need more people at the door carding. I'm not sure what other states do, but we card at the door - are you saying there are places where you get carded when you actually order the drink??? I bitch about PA's liquor laws, but this sounds like one where we are on the right track.

ETA that here if you aren't 21, you can't even ENTER a bar. You can go to someplace like TGIFriday's, but a lot of those prevent underagers from being in certain areas at certain times when the atmosphere becomes more club-like.

And perhaps the bar owners should lobby for law that imposes a bigger penalty on underagers rather than tying up the court system. I agree that the dichotomy between the two is a bit much, especially in CA where 16 year old movie stars can go to the bar.

Allow me to clarify. I am making a reference to the bars in my college town of Pullman, WA (Pop 24,000, 17,000 of which are students).
The bars card at the door, and no matter where you go in this town, especially on weekends, kids will try to get in with fakes, and the bouncers take them away. People get in one at a time, when the bouncer lets them in, so it isn't an issue with needing more people at the bar. It's an issue with the kids thinking that fakes will get them into the bar.

Our town and the university has been bent on shutting down the campus bars (Again, for clarification, NOT literally on campus, but on Greek row, off University property, but still on College hill). Because of the added pressure from the town, the university, and the liquor control board, the bars, and the local stores who sell alcohol all card hard. The corner store makes their employees card everyone, and hold up the ID to a camera to show they've checked it. The owners of these businesses know the risks of underagers, and are working their damndest to make sure it does't happen. But, like all things, it sometimes does.

For some reason, these kids who are intelligent enough to get into college can't seem to accept the fact that a fake with their picture won't get them in. Especially when they look 19 and it says they were born in 1946!

Why don't they just raise the fine?

I've been to the bar with underage drinker who I've known were udnerage and they are usuing the driver license of someone else to get in. It's so obvious that the person holding the card is not the person who it belongs to but some of them don't care.

These bouncers make minomum wage and don't give a rat's ass about their job, they let anyone and their dog in.

So yes, sometimes it is the bouncers because they just aren't doing their job.

It doesn't make much sense to hit the bar so hard if the person has a really good fake ID. I mean, you can try the best you can, but some people are going to get past you. I too think it makes more sense to put the punishment on the person doing the action. But then again, I don't see a 20 year old woman drinking as a big deal.

Just make underage drinking a felony. Funny how so many of ouyr soldiers in Iraq are old enough to kill other people but not old enough to buy or drink beer.

California was one of the first states that had information strips on the back. Many bars, including Amante's has a machine to read them. This means you can't make a fake one as easily with no information on the back. However i really wonder about people who would want to sneak into Amante's. That place is full of yuppie transplants, and people with more money than sense. There are plenty of other hole in the wall bars that one could go to for a drink while underaged and not be hassled. Perhaps these underage drinkers are calling attention to themselves with obnoxious behavior?

I am well familiar with the area SigKapAlumWSU speaks of, and I can imagine the amount of fake IDs that end up at Valhalla's or Shaker's (mmmm PITA PIT!!!). There are two college towns within 10 minutes of each other, and drinking is a common activity every night of the week. I think however, that there being half the students at UI as compared to WSU, slows down the fake IDs on one side of the border. The attitudes towards students in the two towns differs, as do the local bar owners and locations. Also access can depend on who you know, and how you act. There is one place that has NO PROBLEM whipping out the book of IDs to compare, and using a black light to authenticate.

I still have my Alaska license, and it is just laminated. No info strip, the edges are coming apart, it is bent to hell. My University IDs have been more high tech than this. All my license has is a hologram that says "Alaska" trailing down the front. It is so low tech you get your picture taken, and in a minute they hand over your new ID. I remember waiting 6 weeks for my first CA one to arrive by mail.

I had a fake ID as a minor, a damn good one that cost me an arm and a leg. There wasn't a bouncer around who could tell the difference between my ID and my real license. And the guy I got it from made them for everyone, sometimes the bouncer CAN NOT tell the difference. And that is what everyone is getting at. No matter how well you train your staff, sometimes the ID is too good. There are people out there who make a living making ID's for illegal alliens and the like.
As far as the swipe strips on the back, when I was still in undergrad in Fl but over 21, I went to the MVA got an ID card, and gave it to one of my pledge sisters. She had someone laminate an ID over it with her picture, and it worked everywhere until she as well turned 21.
No in my old age, I don't condone this anymore. But nothing is FOOLPROOF, ID's these days are high tech both real and fake, and everyone is stepping up there game to either outwit the fakes, or better counterfeit.
If I knew a bar might sue me underage I might have taken a second thought about going, becasue some stupid MIP charge or other misdemeanor fine of $100 wasn't a big deterant.

Rather than complaining about the effects of the law prohibiting drinking under 21, we should lobby to lower the drinking age back to 18. (Apologies in advance if there is another thread somewhere on this issue - still relatively new ...) As James points out, an 18 year old can serve in the military but can't have a beer - all the responsibility without the corresponding rights. There would probably be an initial boost in drinking on campuses, but then it would taper off as everyone got used to it. It's only a big thrill because you can't do it - remember how well Prohibition worked? Instead of making underage drinking a felony, let's lower the age. I bet the 18-21 voter turnout would drastically increase if there were candidates who supported it.