Should DD have been served alcohol?

[HangingOnJustAbout]

Two DD, 16 and 18, I allow DD16 alcohol (usually a small wine or half a cider) when we go out for meals. I believe this is legal, she drinks sensibly at parties anyway.

My dd went out with sis's dd 18 and 19 for a meal at a chain pizza place. They ordered a bottle of wine to be shared amongst them, all were ID'd which I'm sure is standard but they refused to allow DD 16 to share the wine and she ended up with a coke.

She wasn't that fussed, it was on Friday and has only just come up in conversation. I think she should have been served, she was having a meal with 3 legal adults. Should she have been? Maybe the adults need to have parental responsibility?

Problem is most of the barely over the age of 18 service personnel are not often trained well in seeing how old someone is.

It's normally pretty easy to tell if someone is 10 years over if you look carefully. Skin round the eyes is usually a massive giveaway.

It is a lot harder when people get under 25 or so. Then you really are needing to resort to ID.

But anyone above 30 should be an easy spot, even if they do look generally young for their age the signs are nearly always there if you are trained and look carefully.

Maybe because you’re allowed to drink it but not buy it at 16 and if the 3 of them were likely to split the bill then she’d technically be buying it. Maybe when she’s with her parents, they assume you’ll be paying so she won’t be buying it

I think, as others have said, it's probably in part because they couldn't be sure who would be buying it at that stage. In future, perhaps if they go to somewhere where you can get food but buy drinks at the bar, one of her older friends can buy the bottle of wine separately- at that point you'd probably have less of an issue.

But ultimately they can refuse service to whoever they like, and that is reasonable. Just because the law says they can do it, doesn't mean they have to.

Would you like to point out the bit where I was 'outraged' or 'demanded' my dd should be served? 😂

I don’t get why you feel annoyed if she was not that fussed?

My DD was refused a glass of wine as she didn't have any ID on her in the pub/restaurant we went to after her graduation - she was 21 and definitely doesn't look under 18 but she looked under 25 (and was) so I guess the server was absolutely right to check. Interesting that a PP said other servers couldn't then override the decision!! Put a dampner on the meal though as exH was being a bit of a dick over it and wouldn't leave it alone.

Your children, if they avoid places that won’t serve alcohol , are clearly showing that they require it for it to be worth going.

Managers discretion - they possibly would have served if DD was visibly with a parent or parental figure. When I worked in a pub we would have served if a 16/17yo was with a “responsible adult” but not if it was a 17yo out with a group of a similar age as it just wasn’t worth the hassle, for every well-behaved group of teens there’d always be one that would act up.

The staff consistent policy could be serve 16/17 year olds with a “responsible adult,” not necessarily when they are with other young people who just happen to be old enough to buy alcohol. Saves any drama as the responsibility is on the person presumed to be the parent to keep an eye on them not the venue.

It's not a bill issue it's a responsibility issue.

I encountered the same in a chain restaurant when DS was 17. The fact that he was with his parents made no difference. Restaurant policy was no alcohol served to under 18s regardless of the legal position when eating a meal.

I think back to when I was 16 and had gone away on a sports weekend with a teacher from school. We won a competition and went out for a meal to celebrate. The teacher bought us all a 1/ 2 pint glass of cider each to toast our success. Imagine that happening now!

It may have been to do with payment. 16 and 17 are allowed an alcoholic drink with a meal, but they're not allowed to pay for it.

https://www.gov.uk/alcohol-young-people-law#:~:text=However%2C%20if%20you're%2016,re%20accompanied%20by%20an%20adult.

So out with parents and parents are paying for the full meal, then there's no issue, but if the restaurant serve a bottle of wine to a group of 3 girls, one of whom is 16, and then they split the bill three ways, then the restaurant and your daughter have broken the law.

Its a weird tricky bit of law, so the restaurant may have just decided not to risk it.

Relax, I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just conveying how making a fuss could come across.

I think the whole situation was probably good for your DD. It shows that alcohol isn’t a prerequisite to an enjoyable meal with friends, and is something that should be treated with respect. She’s getting quite a balanced experience of drinking.

It's illegal for them to let yoyr 16 year old drink alcohol even at a meal with their parents. They will lose their licence for that ...which is easily done as each month the company and police deliberately try and catch this out. If a company believed that your 16 year old would drink the shared bottle they can refuse to sell alcohol even to the people who have I.d

This isn't true, see the link above

Sigh. No, it isn't illegal. Why do people spout the 'law' when a quick Google would show them they're wrong?!

I’m in the US, where we have a stupid drinking age (21) and my parents enforced it with me - to the point they took away a basket I won in a raffle two months shy of my 21st birthday because it had alcohol in it and hid it until my birthday - despite the fact that I had a boyfriend who was over age and I went to university, where I (predictably) drank heavily. I think the only reason I didn’t go totally off the deep end was the older boyfriend, honestly.

My brother (13 months younger than me) and sister (3 years younger than me) also had it strictly enforced and they both ended up binge drinking pretty badly for a few years - my sister actually had to quit drinking for a while to get it under control.

By contrast (I think maybe they learned their lesson) my youngest sister - 10 years younger than me - was allowed to try alcohol starting in her teens, and has never had significant interest in it. She’ll be 21 next month and I think she’s been drunk twice in her life, despite going to the same hard-partying university that I went to.

Oh give over!

@Ilovelurchers To all those saying that allowing your teens to drink in moderation encourages a sensibl attitude to alcohol - I am (fortunately) living proof that it does not
You speak from own experience, I speak from mine, my Dsis's and family friends growing up. None of us are bothered about drinking now. Perhaps I would not actually have been bothered about alcohol even IF I had never had some as a teen. Perhaps you would still unfortunately have had a bad attitude to alcohol even if you had never had it as a teen. We can't really say.
@elledee412 , my DD had her first legal drink on her 18th birthday in England. Three years later she then had her 2nd Ist legal drink on her 21st birthday while in America working in a summer camp. She got it free in US as the bar staff paid for it. She thought that was hilarious.