Someone got busted, didn’t he?

Definitely carding this 76-year-old was overboard. The clerk should have made it like a joke (just like the he said) but he also could have just left the store and not turned this into an Internet sensation. Even the registers that require the ID to be swiped must have an override that the manager could have used.

I worked in a MA Walgreens, where ID is mandatory for cigarettes. We’d ask the “ederly” looking their birth date only and would type it in the computer (111111 not working for long indeed), and would ID the young or litigious ones.

By mixing juvenile protection and good sense, I think Walgreen’s achieved a good balance.

You still had some customers that would not give their birth date. Well we would send them at our neighbour, a gas station 30 yards away… The law is the law is the law.

Sometimes that means the store has to close down. Grocery stores and liquor stores cannot be expected to run without a liquor license.

If some old guy feels a bit hassled because some clerk is DOING THEIR JOB, he should suck it up. Maybe he cut corners and did a shoddy job as an insurance firm regional manager, but some people actually do what they’re supposed to do.

if you’re smart, i don’t need to tell you the rest.
if you’re like the rest of the sheeple, then that should’nt bother you.

tick tick tick

If it were me manning the till, I’d ask everyone - that way, when some annoyed just-over-the-age shopper says “I’m old enough, dammit” I can say with an honest conscience “yes, but I ask everybody”. Admittedly, I would’ve said it with a bit of a smile to this particular wrinkly old puffin, but who knows what sort of day the cashier had been having - did Mr Hall greet her with a cheery hello or was he as grumpy as this whole story would suggest?

Common sense has gone from this world!

The reason the law exists is for two reasons:

1. To Tax those that don’t abide by the rules, forcing them to pay fines through tickets, e.g. Minor in possessions.

2. To keep people subdued because they grow up knowing that the government and law enforcement keeps such close tabs on everything. The earlier you learn to follow the rules, the better fat dumb American you will make.

If the government can keep the fear in you, then you won’t fight back. Simple as that. Do you really think that the difference of 21 to 18 makes that big of a difference? No, it doesn’t. I sound like a real conspiracy theorist right now, which I’m not, but it’s true - the American government is a government of scare tactics. Should send this old guy to Gitmo for Christ’s sake!

As for this matter, I agree it is absurd to ID someone when its obvious they are over 21. Although it was a little petty, it takes stands like those to question stupid rules and regulations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

in this case, the clerk and the boss are just following orders that resulted in the loss of a sale (or a bottle of wine from the customer’s POV). but in fact, this is the same exact behavior that put people on trains to death camps and that’s no exaggeration. of course, rabid racism or other forms of hate and society-supported forms of discrimination help to bolster the process, but it has been shown over and over again that real “evil” can be perpetrated by “regular” folks who are “just following orders” and who, in fact, do not share in the consensus view (e.g., Jews are subhuman scum; Mexicans should be kept out of the US with a wall; all Muslims are radical would-be terrorists; etc.).

don’t be fooled by the fact that the fellow was stubborn and ornery about the situation; yes, he could have simply told the clerk his age, but more importantly, he questioned the application of the “rule” and failed to elicit any thoughtful or considered responses from the store staff, who could have reviewed the applicability of the age-policy and seen that in this case, it could be waived. in this case, the blind adherence to the rule prevailed, regardless of the results (i.e., the rule was set up to keep under-aged buying but was not set up to force compliance with disclosure when the customer is clearly over the legal age for purchase).

Result: stores now have blanket policies requiring proof of ID. It’s kind of sad, but you’d think by age 72 a person would have a thick enough skin to deal with something so minor.

Maybe it’s stupid, but it covers their butts, and it’s not the clerk’s fault. Companies insist on it.

If he doesn’t like the rule, he doesn’t have to shop there. That’s how capitalism works.

Nobody is willing to use their brains (or eyes). They just want to follow the written procedure, because that way no-one gets blamed (or sued).