Go Home Already: Shouts and Murmurs
Man Stops Traffic at 17th and K to Demand $200 Million
Compromise Uncertain on Same-Sex Marriage Law
Morning Roundup: Second Helpings Edition
Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
Here's a story we missed last night from WJLA: as of January, bars in D.C. that are caught selling alcohol to minors for the first time now get a warning instead of a $1,000 fine and a two-day liquor license suspension. In a surprise twist, the change in the law pits Jim "Shut 'Em Down" Graham against the D.C./Va. chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), with MADD expressing concern over becoming too lenient on liquor sales violations, and Graham insisting the new law is more fair. Repeat offenders are actually penalized more now than they were before, Graham notes.
DCist is all for making sure underage kids don't get served in bars, if only because we don't want annoying youngsters in our favorite watering holes. The only thing we can't wrap our minds around in terms of this alleged controversy, though, is exactly which D.C. bars are lax about checking ID? As far as we're concerned, Washington, D.C.'s bars card their customers more than any other city we've been to, pretty much across the board. I've personally seen people well into their 60s be denied service at some District bars because they didn't have ID. Are we just not cool enough to know about the places where teens can get served in this city? Seriously, we're asking.
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I moved here in June from Philly and can't BELIEVE how many places card! Unless I know the bartender or liquor store owner, I get asked for my ID. Philly seemed to ID you when it was convenient; mostly at bars located near a university or if you have a younger looking person in your group. I almost never needed ID when I went to a liquor store...
my biggest complaint about letting teenagers into bars with adults is it makes the rest of us feel OLD!
Back In The Day when I was a teenager (before I had status and before I had a...cellphone), during the first Barry administration, man, we used to drive into DC for our liquor runs, or to go to happy hour...never, ever, ever, ever got carded. I mean, we knew where to go, sure...but still, we never had a problem buying booze at stores or bars.
We just need to drop the drinking age back to 18 anyways.
Damn straight. 21 is ridiculous.
Hell yeahs. Greyhound Liquor on NY Avenue was the go-to joint for ID-free booze. The old 930 never carded. Neither did Crow Bar, 21st Amendment, 15 Minutes, Poseurs which, I hasten to add, I ONLY went to for dance night to gawk at skanks. When DC started cracking down on IDs, we'd have to haul out to TicToc for our cases of Schaefer, the one beer to have when you're having more than one. Although, it seems we spent more time driving around looking for cheap beer than actually drinking it.
MADD is a terrorist organization... Like code pink(o), i support their cause but their arguments and the complete lack of common sense is annoying.
This has nothing to do with drunk driving. The DC area is obsessed with checking id's... Madd needs to turn it down a notch and target with common sense and an inclusive approach instead of heaving bombs at anyone who says 'wait a minute, this doesn't seem fair.'
i went to don pablo's on jeff davis hwy the other night (not my choice) and didn't get carded. but they probably wanted to give away those margaritas to anyone who would drink them... gross.
"which D.C. bars are lax about checking ID?"
Back during my college days, Brass Monkey, The Exchange, Bar Nun, Love, Dream, Five, the one around the corner from Meiwah and a few others were extremely lax about IDs.
This irrational carding business is another example of how we've become a nation of adult children presided over by a nanny state. When bars turn 40 year olds away because they forgot their ID, that's just ridiculous.
Bars live in fear of accidentally serving a minor -- when the reality is they probably rarely do. Every time I've heard of an ABC sting, it's a total set up. They strut a bunch of tramped-up kids in and distract the doorman, while one of them flirts with him the others go in. The situations I've heard described in the stings actually don't ever happen in reality. It's so sad that neighborhood bars are targeted -- these places know 3/4 of their customers and would never purposely serve a kid they didn't recognize without carding.
So ABC pulls a fast one for what - to prove that you can use sleight of hand to distract a doorman and sneak someone in? So what. To make that impossible you'd need to install have a TSA style security screening. We don't need that - this just isn't a major problem in DC.
When I was at GWU, there were some bars that made their rent by deliberately flouting underage drinking laws. It was a reasonable business model, really. Get a spot right off campus and develop a reputation for never carding, so you get a captive market of 18-20 year olds. Sell the cheapest shit imaginable, to keep your costs down and, besides, do your customers know the difference, or care? Charge an arm and a leg, because their parents are the ones who are really paying. So long as the additional revenues are greater than any fines and lost business from suspensions, you're in the black.
These establishments actually had a good run for a while, but went out of business after the city stepped up enforcement. I don't know if anyone has stepped into the void left behind; I'm over 21 now (hell, over 30 now, bummer that) and don't have to care.
(All that said, I come from a traditional Italian family. Drinking age, in my family, generally began in junior high, and meant having a glass or two of (watered, likely as not) wine during nice family dinners. As contrary to modern American hysteria as it sounds, I recommend this approach highly -- for some reason, when you grow up thinking of drinking as something you do with your grandparents when they visit, it undermines the appeal of binge-drinking in high school or college.)
Same here, minus the Italians. When alcohol is part of meals and celebrations growing up, it loses much of its forbiddent cachet. You actually look down on your friends who binge. So instead of watered-down wine or near beer with the family meal, you get everyone in their own rooms in the Front Royal mcmansion looking at porn on their iPhones or banging their boyfriends in the rec room or doing bong hits behind the dumpster at the Sev with your equally inarticulate friends. Wouldn't it just be a lot more wholesome if dad, junior, and sis just did body shots off mom's navel?
Wow, your family and mine are very different. I have a brother, not a sister.
I don't actually think the part about underage drinkers rarely ever happening is incredibly true. I have known a ridiculous amount of people to drink underage regularly at bars, and I used to meet other underage drinkers at bars while I was there drinking underage. I'm fairly sure it's pretty common. Though, I could be wrong.
Here here. Its about time. My friend got totally busted in a sting operation at a bar in columbia heights where he thought the door guy was on duty, turns out he didnt start for a half hour, and the cops sent in some kid on a sting operation and my friend didnt card him. Huge fine for the poor bartender. And wow wasnt that so helpful to the community!! Our children were made so much safer.
I know a bar in Alexandria that serves monkeys!