To have a mini rant about inconsistent ID in shops.

[Notss]

Yes. I know.

There are a million and one more important things right now. I know it’s the law, and I know shop workers are under a lot of stress at the moment. I am grateful for what they do; and I used to be one many moons ago.

But, it’s been a very long and stressful week and this little annoyance has just been the final straw on the camel and now I’m just really in need of a rant.

Stop into a big Sainsbury’s on way home from work (on a retail park, you can’t really just walk to it) - buying £50ish worth of groceries, including a reasonably priced bottle of red wine. Get to the till (still wearing my very obvious public sector uniform with photo ID lanyard). The assistant asks for ID and I realise it’s still on the sideboard as I removed it from my purse so my DM could use it to pick a parcel up from the post office the other day.

So I don’t get served the alcohol, big queue, slightly embarrassing; but I’m really polite and say don’t worry about it.

So, I get home, get changed into scruffs, grab my ID and pop back out to the Sainsbury local, as I needed the wine for a recipe. Now I fully expect to be ID’d as I’m wearing trackies, trainers and ponytail; buying only two bottles of plonk.

Doesn’t even ask for ID...

Argh!

She is 19. The company employs young looking 18 & 19 year olds to check the challenge 25 policy is being implemented.

Supermarkets etc contract the company my daughter works for in an attempt to ensure all their staff are operating Challenge 25 to hopefully prevent them falling foul of an actual sting where trading standards send in an under 18 year old or someone has made a complaint.

Sometimes she has to present her ID, sometimes she has to pretend to have forgotten it to see if they still serve her. She has to comment on anything unusual (such as the delivery driver who got confused between Challenge 25 and her actually being 19, not over 25. She has to remember lots of details about who served her etc.

Think 25 should encompass the vast majority of 18/19 year olds

The inconsistencies that cant be helped are more the 24-29/30 year olds where its more open to interpretation

@SachaStark

Which is totally fine, *@BettyBooper*. Why isn’t he carrying his British ID with him?

Or, do you expect retail staff to learn what every single driving license in the world looks like, just in case they are handed a fraudulent one?

Eh? Do you think every person in Britain buying alcohol has a British ID

It's inconsistent because different people are doing it

Some people really worry about the likelihood of getting a narc, some people just follow the instructions on the till slavishly, a cashier of ours refused to budge with a 40 plus year old because the till told her it was an age restricted product and she'd need to check ID. We reworded the prompt after that

And some people don't care

Checkout staff and shops face massive sanctions for serving anyone underage. No-one should criticise them for insisting on ID

At the age of 30 I was served alcohol in Sainsburys, a few days later when I went to get paracetamol (wasn't for a hangover!) the same person who served me alcohol refused to let me buy the paracetamol because I 'looked under the age of 21'

@SachaStark

Which is totally fine, *@BettyBooper*. Why isn’t he carrying his British ID with him?

Or, do you expect retail staff to learn what every single driving license in the world looks like, just in case they are handed a fraudulent one?

Ffs, this has to be the most ridiculous post of the week.

Two thoughts- firstly did the first person want to have some sort of conversation out of the boredom of the job, and secondly, in a larger store do they feel they will get more support from supervisors and managers when they challenge?

The 25 rule is in place in all of the major retailers and is down to the individual cashiers own perception of the customers age. They are each personally at risk for large fines, a criminal record and potentially a prison sentence.

I’m not sure why it is so difficult to comprehend why they won’t blithely serve people when they don’t have ID, regardless of their insistence they are old enough.

@BettyBooper my dd was on holiday in Disneyworld and was refused a glass of wine because she only had a U.K. driver’s license on her. So she had to nip back to her hotel and get her U.K. passport (which they did accept as proof of I’d).

@SachaStark

Which is totally fine, *@BettyBooper*. Why isn’t he carrying his British ID with him?

Or, do you expect retail staff to learn what every single driving license in the world looks like, just in case they are handed a fraudulent one?

Not everyone in the UK is British.

Actually its those who weren't born here that tend to have the international ID cards i see alot of those.

@SemperIdem

The 25 rule is in place in all of the major retailers and is down to the individual cashiers own perception of the customers age. They are each personally at risk for large fines, a criminal record and potentially a prison sentence.

I’m not sure why it is so difficult to comprehend why they won’t blithely serve people when they don’t have ID, regardless of their insistence they are old enough.

An age verification policy is a mandatory condition of obtaining and keeping a licence. Challenge 21 and 25 are considered best practice. Retailers also need to be able to show they're not just in place but being used. Sanctions on the license (up to and including removal) for not doing so can be imposed as well as fines and as you say a criminal record, not just for the premises license holder but also the individual serving. Then you've got the company policies and the sanctions imposed by them if someone is caught breaking them even when laws are not broken. I'm pretty sure most people would agree that breaking your company policies is not a good Idea, and that by doing so you should take punishment coming your way. The customer stands to have none of those things, so it's very easy to start moaning about common sense etc when you don't have anywhere near as much to lose. The customer stands to lose a glass of wine with dinner, the seller an awful lot more. Imo people really don't like being challenged by checkout or pub staff, because these types of workers aren't generally treated with respect anyway. On the licensing course I did the teacher said something that stuck with me, don't accept any kind of ID that you wouldn't be prepared to defend taking to save your job, financial cost or a criminal record, because that's what you might have to do.

Surely a personal fine/court proceedings/prison would be difficult to implement on the cashier because how old someone looks is subjective.

Unless the customer was a 16 year old who looks like a child etc, the cashier could use the defence that to them, the customer looked over 25.

@SachaStark

Which is totally fine, *@BettyBooper*. Why isn’t he carrying his British ID with him?

Or, do you expect retail staff to learn what every single driving license in the world looks like, just in case they are handed a fraudulent one?

I was served alcohol in the US with a British driving licence.

My American colleague was allowed to live here and drive with his US driving licence for years before he was required to get a British one.