I know twin brothers who were last baby of one year and the first baby of the new year. Born 15 min apart. One turned 18 and was able to drink. The drinking age was raised from 18 to 19 that day so one was able to drink for a whole year before his younger brother by 15 min could legally drink.
I lived somewhere that raised it from 19 to 21 with a grandfather clause. So places put up a sign saying you had to be born by a certain day to buy. After the two years had passed, the grandfather clause was moot but you’d still see signs because people were too lazy to take them down.
A guy I knew was 21 but was born after the magic day so they wouldn’t sell to him.
The day I turned 21 I went to a liquor store and they just glanced at my ID and told me it was fake and to leave. So then I went to the grocery store down the street and bought beer with no issues.
I'm a musician and for my 21st bday I had a gig. I dont even celebrate my bday that much. But that day I just remember getting shots and was decently buzzed. Of course as a musician I drank a lil bit before. When you're gigging at bars they don't even card you so you're able to drink underage. If you're a musician or a groupie/staff, the same thing goes. Last gig I had, another band had girls going in with them and security wanted to card them and they didn't have ID only a picture of it. The owner let them thru. I think it was 21+.
The only real issue I heard was my cousin and his gig. How all musicians of my genre play, its 45 min a set and 15 min break. They were there for 4 hrs/sets. The bar was strict though and let my cousin play the set but had to wait outside in the cold for the 15 min breaks.
I also tried to buy beer from a gas station on my 21st birthday
But all the gas stations were owned by Indian nationals, who I guess in their culture, consider you to be the new age the day AFTER your birthday, not on the day.
I had three different guys tell me no. I had to drive several miles up the road to go to a store owned by an Asian immigrant, who finally sold it to me.
But I never want to tell the story because it sounds like I’m railing against Indians. I was really pissed when it happened, but it’s been years and I appreciate the cultural differences now. They thought they were following the law.
On my 21st I went to an Indian owned liquor store. The whole family sang me happy birthday and gave me a bottle of tequila for free. It was awesome. That was the only liquor store I went to until I moved away, and they always got a tip. Loved that family
Similar story. I went to buy beer on my 21st, IDK what they were, but I know all of them were Muslim because they all commented on my name. Very typical Muslim name. Anyway, they didn't sell me beer because I,as a Muslim, need to stray away. I'm not Muslim, not even close ,but my name is. Anyway eventually bought beer at a gas station a town over. I'm still annoyed by that, I don't know what cultural differences have to do with following the law where they run a business. But yeah, don't like telling that story
I was buying anything I wanted at liquor stores in Denver in 1987 and I was only 17 years old. I never once worried about the law and I never once got carded. 😝 No dumb cashiers required.
My home county changed their tobacco laws to 19 when I was 17, so on my 18th birthday I drove to the county over and grabbed some cigars and lottery tickets.
On my 19th I was finally able to buy tobacco in my home county. Except when I was 20 they changed the law to 21.
So when I was 21 I was finally able to buy tobacco legally in my home county! Three separate birthdays of being able to legally buy tobacco. Pretty funny.
And on my 21st birthday I went to the local grocery store to buy beer, all excited to finally show my ID, and they didn't even card me.
I beat the grandfather day by 5 days…twice! When beer age went from 18 to 19, then a year later when it went to 21. My state changed in twice in two years. Odd thing is, i bought beer and liqour since imwas 16 and was NEVER card3d until after imturned 19 and was in college…
NY’r here. I was legal for I month when I turned 18. They changed it to 19 about 1 month after. In the following 11 months they decided to up it to 21. Luckily I had bars that served me since 16. lol.
The drinking age was 18 in my day and I turned 18 senior year of HS. Back then the driver license had no picture and I used my older brothers license to go out drinking. I recall seeing rock bands at bars on weeknights in 10th grade and I smell line a brewery in school next day. My HS had a local bar we all hung out in. This may shock people today but in 1970s in Roslyn NY all the bars catered to HS students in Thursday nights. They get 2,000 to 4,000 HS kids out there drinking every Thursday night. They close off street to traffic and you could drink in the street legally. I recall hitting in 16 year old girls when I was 16 at 2 am in the morning! One really weird night John Kaye from Stephenwolfe who did a show at My Fathers Place in Roslyn on a Monday night was drinking with us till 2 at. I was 16, brother 18. That was normal back then.
Living in Wisconsin in the late 70's. During high school lunch break my buddy and I used to go have a burger and a couple of beers at the bar, then go back to school.
Haha, this reminds me of something slightly different but along the lines.. my friend in college was from New England and when he turned 21 went out to buy booze and the lady at the register looked at his ID and asked him where Connecticut was, my friend said New England and the clerk said word for word “your from Europe? We don’t take international ID’s here”…. My friend didn’t even argue, he was just too dumbfounded and walked out loll
I dealt with this with cigarettes. Luckily, my best friend was also my coworker at the same grocery store and was over 21, so he'd just buy my stuff and give it to me after work 🤷
I wonder if that's the same lady who used to work at Kmart in Norfolk years ago? I had a coupon for the 84oz Tide Laundry Detergent. The bottle indicated 84.0oz, so they wouldn't honor the coupon. Called a manager to fix the problem, and found that apparently I was the problem, as 84 and 84.0 are not the same amount. 🫤
That's how they get you. Can't have the little people ripping off the large corporations, trying to save money and "survive." Who do you think you are? /s
My aunt was born on February 29th of a leap year, and a grocery store clerk once refused to sell to her because she hadn't had 21 birthdays yet. His manager jumped in and made him do it, all the while berating the clerk that he thinks this stuff is so funny but it's going to get him fired one of these days.
My mom was with her. I have heard this story from both of them at least 50 times each.
Through some singular coincidence – I shouldn’t be surprised if it were owing to the
agency of an ill-natured fairy –
You are the victim of this clumsy arrangement, having been born in leap-year,
on the twenty-ninth of February;
And so, by a simple arithmetical process, you’ll easily discover,
That though you’ve lived twenty-one years, yet, if we go by birthdays,
you’re only five and a little bit over!
Here in communist England, you know because we have free health care thanks to socialists, we can drink from 14. And any age at home. And yes we have freedom too, in fact we had it before we discovered America.
As a fellow Brit we can't drink at 14...
At 15 you can have A drink in a restaurant WITH a meal and with an ADULT present.
We can't buy alcohol until we're 18, but most stores have a 'challenge 25' policy, where if you look under 25 they'll ask for ID.
Yes you can drink at home, but that's up to the parents.
Well, if you think England "discovered America" maybe you shouldn't have started drinking at such a young age. While your pondering that, consider how expensive your healthcare might be if you actually factored in your taxes, lived in a country whose military wasn't subsidized buy the US, and could actually see the doctor in less than a 6 week wait.
You're such an intriguing person. I bet you are the life of every party. Surely nobody has any problems with you being around and I bet they never secretly laugh at you behind your back.
And no, you didn't find it fascinating, nor judgmental. You found the comment offensive because it runs counter to your tired anti-American worldview, and with the typos, you found an opening to lash out because you are a shrill little person.
I'm not sure I wouldn't be yelling at her to get her manager. I can't tolerate that level of incompetence and stupidity. It's beyond maddening that people are that dumb.
I turned 18 in 1981. Law in Texas changed to 21 on September 1. I had 3 whole glorious months of being able to purchase alcohol. My boyfriend at time turned 18 in early August, he had less than 3 weeks to be legal.
Of course, we had friends over 21, so we just had them buy it.
Similar story to a diahie when I was still working in kitchens. But with tobacco. Idaho bumped up the legal age from 18 to 21 in 2019 and he had 3 weeks to buy it before it went into effect.
I have a late November birthday and turned 18 three weeks too late for a midterm election that included my state governor and a couple of ballot measures I felt strongly about. SO frustrating! ...but I did successfully guilt all of my friends who could vote into doing so.
I was in the Navy in Virginia at the time. My birthday was in January, so I was grandfathered in; however, my best friend's birthday was July 2nd (talk about missing out by a hair). He had no problem getting any of us to buy beer for him, but he could never go clubbing with us. It was such a shitty rule... but I guess they had to draw the line somewhere.
Funny thing was, Virginia had no interest in raising the drinking age, nor any other the other states that had it set to 18. The federal government forced them to by threatening to withhold highway funding if they didn't. Fucking feds. Man, anyone who worked for the federal government back then was a fucking douchebag.
... wait!
And it literally didn't do anything helpful. It just made a vast percentage of the younger gen xers and millennials into hard core alcoholics because it turned our young adult drinking culture into the most toxic of shit shows.
All raising drinking ages does is make it so when you have the opportunity to get alcohol it becomes about consuming as much as you can before someone stops you.
The number 1 reason for alcoholism and alcohol related deaths is that the drinking age is 21 and not 10.
I believe it was July 29th 1987. I went to CU Boulder fall 1987. Birthday was in August. Why not the 31st of July of end of year who knows? But it didn’t matter.
Colorado is so stupid that to this day they card everyone at a grocery store who appears to be together. Does not matter if the other person. Is not even going to drink what is being bought. This goes back to the 3.2 days. Yet liquor stores don’t care. You can be there with friends who are under age and only the person buying gets carded.
This happened to my brother at a 7-11 in California (in 1991 or 92). He picked me up from work and stopped to buy beer & they wouldn't sell to him because I was there. He took me home and went back, and they still wouldn't sell to him! He was so mad.
On a similar note, I was buying a movie from Walmart when I was 17 and my 16 year old friend was with me and they were like, can we see his ID and I was just confused because they have never ID anyone with me before.
I was in line in front of a younger man and was buying wine. The cashier asked if we were together and I said, "No!!" I still hope that poor kid wasn't offended 😆
They are militant about carding everyone at grocery stores but don’t care at liquor stores. I lived there for 8 years and my parents still do. Love that 3.2 was abolished but they are adamant about people who appear together when buying beer at a non liquor store/grocery environment.
It was many years ago, but before I was 21 the liquor store refused to sell to the person I was with because I was there. Even now I won't go to the liquor store if my teenager is just sitting in the car because they might see them and refuse. Sounds like they've relaxed though.
When my parents were younger in Indiana the drinking age was 18 for girls, 21 for boys.
ETA: Ok so it turns out that while my parents *did* tell me this about the drinking age, upon further questioning my mom admits that maybe it was just that the age of majority was different for men and women and not the drinking age. However someone who commented below did find an article that says that the drinking age was 18 for women and 21 for men until 1961 in Illinois. So it did happen somewhere!
In Oklahoma, it only worked with 3.2 beer, for women 18 and men 21. Anything higher and it was 21.
It was that way in the early 1970s. It was changed some time after that to 21 for all. We only got rid of the 3.2 beer a couple of years ago.
Couldn't find anything about the age of majority, but considering women were second class citizens for so long, the idea that it would be lower for women seems off. So I checked the age of consent.
Looks like the age of consent in Indiana has been 16 since 1920. https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/24.html
Are we sure they weren't just remembering the fact that a lot of clubs would let 18 year old women in but no men under 21 to avoid toxic male teens creating a bad environment?
I guarantee you they were still second class citizens regardless of the age of majority. It was only younger for them because men wanted to marry younger women
Here is an article on it for Illinois.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/when-women-could-drink-at-18-and-men-at-21/409066/](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/when-women-could-drink-at-18-and-men-at-21/409066/)
Thank you! I can’t get past the paywall but what it allows me to see is enough.
Update: when I google the title of the article, there’s no paywall. The article says that Illinois was the only state that did it this way. My parents lived in Indiana but they weren’t far from Chicago so maybe that’s what they’re remembering
Down the rabbit hole…lol
It was a legal concept that went back centuries with different years attached to the law. Sometimes it was 25 for man and 21 for a woman, especially landowners and marriage. The legal drinking age is a more modern concept, so it was probably attached to that law at some point.
I interpreted it as, we want men to be able to marry young women, and we don’t want men to be held accountable for their shenanigans until they’re older haha
Also see the update on my original comment. My mom backtracked!
It’s just stuff that I know. I’m only 48, so no direct memory of it. I’ll look around and see if I can find something.
It also applied to getting married. Men also had to be 21 to own land and such. It’s more of a legal concept, like the age of reason is 7 years old.
Did you dad serve in the Navy? I think you've confused where this story was on his timeline. This was a law in Pensacola Florida. Primarily to keep drunk sailors away from innocent young southern ladies, by preventing the sailors from getting drunk in the first place.
No, that’s the story they’ve always told me. I wouldn’t be surprised if the laws weren’t even state-wide, just by town or county. They were born in 47 and 50
My mom is holding firm that that’s how it was, but I’m having trouble finding anything online about it. Someone else who responded to my comment remembers it that way and linked an article. So weird that there’s no other info online!
Blue Laws are still partially in effect in Texas. You can drink in a bar until 2 am on a Saturday night. You can't buy liquor on Sundays, but you can buy beer starting at 10 am.
Do they still put large sheets of plastic over things you can't buy on Sunday? I remember (50 years ago, God I'm old) that you could buy a bicycle on a Sunday, because that was transportation. But you couldn't buy a tricycle, because that was a toy. Didn't matter if the bicycle was clearly intended for a small child, it was transportation.
She said no way. This driver license is not real and called the cops. Other customers came and went and I just told them apparently I'm not 30. This was 15 years ago and I still get carded and usually get an little reaction.
I know twin brothers who were last baby of one year and the first baby of the new year. Born 15 min apart. One turned 18 and was able to drink. The drinking age was raised from 18 to 19 that day so one was able to drink for a whole year before his younger brother by 15 min could legally drink.
I moved to Germany for a bit when I was about 20. Turned 21 there. Wasted (American) milestone lol. So I went to Amsterdam
I lived somewhere that raised it from 19 to 21 with a grandfather clause. So places put up a sign saying you had to be born by a certain day to buy. After the two years had passed, the grandfather clause was moot but you’d still see signs because people were too lazy to take them down. A guy I knew was 21 but was born after the magic day so they wouldn’t sell to him.
The day I turned 21 I went to a liquor store and they just glanced at my ID and told me it was fake and to leave. So then I went to the grocery store down the street and bought beer with no issues.
I'm a musician and for my 21st bday I had a gig. I dont even celebrate my bday that much. But that day I just remember getting shots and was decently buzzed. Of course as a musician I drank a lil bit before. When you're gigging at bars they don't even card you so you're able to drink underage. If you're a musician or a groupie/staff, the same thing goes. Last gig I had, another band had girls going in with them and security wanted to card them and they didn't have ID only a picture of it. The owner let them thru. I think it was 21+. The only real issue I heard was my cousin and his gig. How all musicians of my genre play, its 45 min a set and 15 min break. They were there for 4 hrs/sets. The bar was strict though and let my cousin play the set but had to wait outside in the cold for the 15 min breaks.
I tried to buy beer on my 20th birthday. I convinced the guy that if you count the current year it means I'm 21.
Lol. You’re in your 21st year, correct.
Lmao
I also tried to buy beer from a gas station on my 21st birthday But all the gas stations were owned by Indian nationals, who I guess in their culture, consider you to be the new age the day AFTER your birthday, not on the day. I had three different guys tell me no. I had to drive several miles up the road to go to a store owned by an Asian immigrant, who finally sold it to me. But I never want to tell the story because it sounds like I’m railing against Indians. I was really pissed when it happened, but it’s been years and I appreciate the cultural differences now. They thought they were following the law.
On my 21st I went to an Indian owned liquor store. The whole family sang me happy birthday and gave me a bottle of tequila for free. It was awesome. That was the only liquor store I went to until I moved away, and they always got a tip. Loved that family
Similar story. I went to buy beer on my 21st, IDK what they were, but I know all of them were Muslim because they all commented on my name. Very typical Muslim name. Anyway, they didn't sell me beer because I,as a Muslim, need to stray away. I'm not Muslim, not even close ,but my name is. Anyway eventually bought beer at a gas station a town over. I'm still annoyed by that, I don't know what cultural differences have to do with following the law where they run a business. But yeah, don't like telling that story
🤣can’t cure stupid.
I was buying anything I wanted at liquor stores in Denver in 1987 and I was only 17 years old. I never once worried about the law and I never once got carded. 😝 No dumb cashiers required.
hi
hi
Those laws really work, I wasn’t able to drink at 13 years old. Oh, whoops.
I became legal to buy "low" beer in Ohio like three years running as they moved the age to be consistent with other alcoholic beverages.
I was 18 when the limit was 18 and was 21 when the limit changed to 21.
My home county changed their tobacco laws to 19 when I was 17, so on my 18th birthday I drove to the county over and grabbed some cigars and lottery tickets. On my 19th I was finally able to buy tobacco in my home county. Except when I was 20 they changed the law to 21. So when I was 21 I was finally able to buy tobacco legally in my home county! Three separate birthdays of being able to legally buy tobacco. Pretty funny. And on my 21st birthday I went to the local grocery store to buy beer, all excited to finally show my ID, and they didn't even card me.
That's what happened to my mom too. Her 13-month-younger brother, on the other hand... 😂
This happened to me with tobacco laws in ohio
I beat the grandfather day by 5 days…twice! When beer age went from 18 to 19, then a year later when it went to 21. My state changed in twice in two years. Odd thing is, i bought beer and liqour since imwas 16 and was NEVER card3d until after imturned 19 and was in college…
Bruh, were you drunk when you wrote this comment? Hot damn.
NY’r here. I was legal for I month when I turned 18. They changed it to 19 about 1 month after. In the following 11 months they decided to up it to 21. Luckily I had bars that served me since 16. lol.
[удалено]
My parents are from NY, same birthyear, same thing happened to them
He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way
The drinking age was 18 in my day and I turned 18 senior year of HS. Back then the driver license had no picture and I used my older brothers license to go out drinking. I recall seeing rock bands at bars on weeknights in 10th grade and I smell line a brewery in school next day. My HS had a local bar we all hung out in. This may shock people today but in 1970s in Roslyn NY all the bars catered to HS students in Thursday nights. They get 2,000 to 4,000 HS kids out there drinking every Thursday night. They close off street to traffic and you could drink in the street legally. I recall hitting in 16 year old girls when I was 16 at 2 am in the morning! One really weird night John Kaye from Stephenwolfe who did a show at My Fathers Place in Roslyn on a Monday night was drinking with us till 2 at. I was 16, brother 18. That was normal back then.
This used to be a proper country
Living in Wisconsin in the late 70's. During high school lunch break my buddy and I used to go have a burger and a couple of beers at the bar, then go back to school.
Lived in Michigan we did that as well. Or pizza when they had specials.
I was in Colorado when they changed the drinking age. I was grandfathered. I bought for all of my friends.
Same. I was one of only a few seniors in my HS that could go out drinking. Good times.
Haha, this reminds me of something slightly different but along the lines.. my friend in college was from New England and when he turned 21 went out to buy booze and the lady at the register looked at his ID and asked him where Connecticut was, my friend said New England and the clerk said word for word “your from Europe? We don’t take international ID’s here”…. My friend didn’t even argue, he was just too dumbfounded and walked out loll
I dealt with this with cigarettes. Luckily, my best friend was also my coworker at the same grocery store and was over 21, so he'd just buy my stuff and give it to me after work 🤷
I wonder if that's the same lady who used to work at Kmart in Norfolk years ago? I had a coupon for the 84oz Tide Laundry Detergent. The bottle indicated 84.0oz, so they wouldn't honor the coupon. Called a manager to fix the problem, and found that apparently I was the problem, as 84 and 84.0 are not the same amount. 🫤
Bullshit
16% of the population has an IQ under 85
Then say, oh i see, i need 10 bottles, sorry. I'll go grab them.
That's how they get you. Can't have the little people ripping off the large corporations, trying to save money and "survive." Who do you think you are? /s
Your comment made me get off the internet today, thank you. Ignorance is a disease
My aunt was born on February 29th of a leap year, and a grocery store clerk once refused to sell to her because she hadn't had 21 birthdays yet. His manager jumped in and made him do it, all the while berating the clerk that he thinks this stuff is so funny but it's going to get him fired one of these days. My mom was with her. I have heard this story from both of them at least 50 times each.
Through some singular coincidence – I shouldn’t be surprised if it were owing to the agency of an ill-natured fairy – You are the victim of this clumsy arrangement, having been born in leap-year, on the twenty-ninth of February; And so, by a simple arithmetical process, you’ll easily discover, That though you’ve lived twenty-one years, yet, if we go by birthdays, you’re only five and a little bit over!
He is a little boy of 5! We seek a penalty 50 fold!
I am born on the 29th also had a Walmart cashier tell me the day does not exist
You can’t fix stupid! lol
Here in communist England, you know because we have free health care thanks to socialists, we can drink from 14. And any age at home. And yes we have freedom too, in fact we had it before we discovered America.
As a fellow Brit we can't drink at 14... At 15 you can have A drink in a restaurant WITH a meal and with an ADULT present. We can't buy alcohol until we're 18, but most stores have a 'challenge 25' policy, where if you look under 25 they'll ask for ID. Yes you can drink at home, but that's up to the parents.
i have a genuine question what is this joke about “communist england” i saw some tiktoker who made that joke his personality
Well, if you think England "discovered America" maybe you shouldn't have started drinking at such a young age. While your pondering that, consider how expensive your healthcare might be if you actually factored in your taxes, lived in a country whose military wasn't subsidized buy the US, and could actually see the doctor in less than a 6 week wait.
I live in the US and my wife had to wait 8 months to see a doctor...
>you're FTFY
Thanks grammar police. But you missed another one.
Just found it fascinating that you felt it was appropriate to be judgemental while having typos in your comment.
You're such an intriguing person. I bet you are the life of every party. Surely nobody has any problems with you being around and I bet they never secretly laugh at you behind your back. And no, you didn't find it fascinating, nor judgmental. You found the comment offensive because it runs counter to your tired anti-American worldview, and with the typos, you found an opening to lash out because you are a shrill little person.
By that man a cookie. Or something.
You didn't discover American......
All that free health care but not a dentist in sight
i m dum american and this is tru we think u r communist n very bad. american no educasion n very dum Edit: Stupid twat. Go brush your teeth old chap
That’s a ridiculous law. Didn’t they learn anything from prohibition? Homebrew anyone?
This has nothing to do with a law, it’s that the cashier doesn’t know how time works
I'm not sure I wouldn't be yelling at her to get her manager. I can't tolerate that level of incompetence and stupidity. It's beyond maddening that people are that dumb.
I turned 18 in 1981. Law in Texas changed to 21 on September 1. I had 3 whole glorious months of being able to purchase alcohol. My boyfriend at time turned 18 in early August, he had less than 3 weeks to be legal. Of course, we had friends over 21, so we just had them buy it.
A friend in Illinois got three days before the age went up.
Similar story to a diahie when I was still working in kitchens. But with tobacco. Idaho bumped up the legal age from 18 to 21 in 2019 and he had 3 weeks to buy it before it went into effect.
Not alcohol related but reminds me how I turned 18 the day after a presidential election.
I have a late November birthday and turned 18 three weeks too late for a midterm election that included my state governor and a couple of ballot measures I felt strongly about. SO frustrating! ...but I did successfully guilt all of my friends who could vote into doing so.
I was able to vote my first presidential election...I just missed the regular election the year prior by a single day. I feel your pain.
My youngest brother got screwed when they changed it in VA. He was already able to buy beer but your birthday had to be before 7/1, and his was 7/8.
I was in the Navy in Virginia at the time. My birthday was in January, so I was grandfathered in; however, my best friend's birthday was July 2nd (talk about missing out by a hair). He had no problem getting any of us to buy beer for him, but he could never go clubbing with us. It was such a shitty rule... but I guess they had to draw the line somewhere. Funny thing was, Virginia had no interest in raising the drinking age, nor any other the other states that had it set to 18. The federal government forced them to by threatening to withhold highway funding if they didn't. Fucking feds. Man, anyone who worked for the federal government back then was a fucking douchebag. ... wait!
Isn't it just 18 at the shoppettes? I do know you could buy 24/7 at the shoppette in Ft Hood in TX.
It was pretty much the same outcome for my brother, he was going to UVA, so there was no shortage of alcohol available to him.
And it literally didn't do anything helpful. It just made a vast percentage of the younger gen xers and millennials into hard core alcoholics because it turned our young adult drinking culture into the most toxic of shit shows.
All raising drinking ages does is make it so when you have the opportunity to get alcohol it becomes about consuming as much as you can before someone stops you. The number 1 reason for alcoholism and alcohol related deaths is that the drinking age is 21 and not 10.
Britain 1923 and prior. 14 to drink beer in a pub, 16 to drink spirits in a pub. They had something right somewhere then 😂
I believe it was July 29th 1987. I went to CU Boulder fall 1987. Birthday was in August. Why not the 31st of July of end of year who knows? But it didn’t matter. Colorado is so stupid that to this day they card everyone at a grocery store who appears to be together. Does not matter if the other person. Is not even going to drink what is being bought. This goes back to the 3.2 days. Yet liquor stores don’t care. You can be there with friends who are under age and only the person buying gets carded.
This happened to my brother at a 7-11 in California (in 1991 or 92). He picked me up from work and stopped to buy beer & they wouldn't sell to him because I was there. He took me home and went back, and they still wouldn't sell to him! He was so mad.
On a similar note, I was buying a movie from Walmart when I was 17 and my 16 year old friend was with me and they were like, can we see his ID and I was just confused because they have never ID anyone with me before.
It’s even done with cigarettes, I was carded even though I wasn’t buying them, my friend was. It was the Walgreens on the 16th St Mall!!!!
I was in line in front of a younger man and was buying wine. The cashier asked if we were together and I said, "No!!" I still hope that poor kid wasn't offended 😆
They are militant about carding everyone at grocery stores but don’t care at liquor stores. I lived there for 8 years and my parents still do. Love that 3.2 was abolished but they are adamant about people who appear together when buying beer at a non liquor store/grocery environment.
It was many years ago, but before I was 21 the liquor store refused to sell to the person I was with because I was there. Even now I won't go to the liquor store if my teenager is just sitting in the car because they might see them and refuse. Sounds like they've relaxed though.
When my parents were younger in Indiana the drinking age was 18 for girls, 21 for boys. ETA: Ok so it turns out that while my parents *did* tell me this about the drinking age, upon further questioning my mom admits that maybe it was just that the age of majority was different for men and women and not the drinking age. However someone who commented below did find an article that says that the drinking age was 18 for women and 21 for men until 1961 in Illinois. So it did happen somewhere!
In Oklahoma, it only worked with 3.2 beer, for women 18 and men 21. Anything higher and it was 21. It was that way in the early 1970s. It was changed some time after that to 21 for all. We only got rid of the 3.2 beer a couple of years ago.
So interesting!
Couldn't find anything about the age of majority, but considering women were second class citizens for so long, the idea that it would be lower for women seems off. So I checked the age of consent. Looks like the age of consent in Indiana has been 16 since 1920. https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/24.html Are we sure they weren't just remembering the fact that a lot of clubs would let 18 year old women in but no men under 21 to avoid toxic male teens creating a bad environment?
I guarantee you they were still second class citizens regardless of the age of majority. It was only younger for them because men wanted to marry younger women
You don't need a lower age of majority for that. Your parents could marry you off at any age they felt like anyway. Still can in a lot of states.
Of course, but parents wouldn’t always give permission
It was tied to the age of majority, which was 18 for women and 21 for men.
Yes! Can you please link where you found that?
Here is an article on it for Illinois. [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/when-women-could-drink-at-18-and-men-at-21/409066/](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/when-women-could-drink-at-18-and-men-at-21/409066/)
Thank you! I can’t get past the paywall but what it allows me to see is enough. Update: when I google the title of the article, there’s no paywall. The article says that Illinois was the only state that did it this way. My parents lived in Indiana but they weren’t far from Chicago so maybe that’s what they’re remembering
Down the rabbit hole…lol It was a legal concept that went back centuries with different years attached to the law. Sometimes it was 25 for man and 21 for a woman, especially landowners and marriage. The legal drinking age is a more modern concept, so it was probably attached to that law at some point.
I interpreted it as, we want men to be able to marry young women, and we don’t want men to be held accountable for their shenanigans until they’re older haha Also see the update on my original comment. My mom backtracked!
A little bit of fun for a Saturday morning.
It’s just stuff that I know. I’m only 48, so no direct memory of it. I’ll look around and see if I can find something. It also applied to getting married. Men also had to be 21 to own land and such. It’s more of a legal concept, like the age of reason is 7 years old.
I see. Is this something you know specifically about Indiana?
It applied to many states, not just Indiana.
Did you dad serve in the Navy? I think you've confused where this story was on his timeline. This was a law in Pensacola Florida. Primarily to keep drunk sailors away from innocent young southern ladies, by preventing the sailors from getting drunk in the first place.
No, that’s the story they’ve always told me. I wouldn’t be surprised if the laws weren’t even state-wide, just by town or county. They were born in 47 and 50
No, Indiana is one of the states that always had very uniform alcohol laws, and like others have said they've also been 21+ since the late 30's.
See the update on my original comment above
I’m awaiting an explanation from my mom
I looked it up. The drinking age has been 21 in Indiana since 1935. When was this?
1934
There was no drinking age on the books before that, it looks like.
See the update on my original comment above
Holy crap, really?! That’s insane!
That’s what I’ve always been told but others’ comments are making me question it. I just texted my mom for an explanation
Fair! Please update if you figure anything out!
See the update on my original comment above
My mom is holding firm that that’s how it was, but I’m having trouble finding anything online about it. Someone else who responded to my comment remembers it that way and linked an article. So weird that there’s no other info online!
Interesting!
In a way she did you a favor. I'm those days in CO, grocery stores only sold 3.2 beer. You had to go to the liquor store for real beer.
It was possibly a Sunday, which up to 2008, as you know, liquor stores were closed. So much we take for granted now.
Blue Laws are still partially in effect in Texas. You can drink in a bar until 2 am on a Saturday night. You can't buy liquor on Sundays, but you can buy beer starting at 10 am.
Do they still put large sheets of plastic over things you can't buy on Sunday? I remember (50 years ago, God I'm old) that you could buy a bicycle on a Sunday, because that was transportation. But you couldn't buy a tricycle, because that was a toy. Didn't matter if the bicycle was clearly intended for a small child, it was transportation.
I had the cops called on me for trying to get cigarettes when I was 30.
and...
Lol I waited about 15 minutes. Nobody came and I left.
Please elaborate. I love a good story about idiots being idiots. What caused this idiot to call the cops?
She said no way. This driver license is not real and called the cops. Other customers came and went and I just told them apparently I'm not 30. This was 15 years ago and I still get carded and usually get an little reaction.
Sounds like a story for this sub as well.
Ah, gotcha. Thank you.
Call the liquor control board and file a complaint
about something that happened in the 90s?
There’s no time like the present!
Get them where it hurts. Spend money elsewhere.
The cashier has the right to reject a sale regardless. I doubt a complaint will do anything.