Opinion

Buying beer in peace

It shouldn't be this hard

By Marshall Dury

Posted on May 08, 2003, at 12:00 a.m.

First appeared Feb. 27, 2003

I turned 21 this past January. With this birthday came the age-old inauguration into buying and consuming alcohol. I sauntered down to Shop ‘N Save, picked up a 12-pack of my choice beer and headed for the counter.

I’ll admit that I was a bit nervous since this was my first time buying alcohol. I am also one of the three or four out-of-state students here at the University of Maine, making my license a bit odder than Maine’s archaic, laminated index card. I forked over my Massachusetts temporary license and it hit the fan.

The front-end manager was called in and soon my flimsy piece of paper was whisked away to the customer service desk for “official” verification. Long story short, they refused to sell me beer.

I have since received my permanent license but the fun hasn’t stopped. Since I renewed my license three days before I actually turned 21, I have an “Under 21″ license. In Massachusetts, this means that your license is vertical. I won’t try to dance around the facts – the vertical license looks really messed up. But, simply because the license looks different doesn’t mean it should be nullified by places of business.

I can list several places that require out-of-staters to present two forms of photo identification with the birth date present on both cards. Just this past weekend, I was not able to purchase beer at Thriftway for this exact reason. The person I was with instead took the duty of purchasing the alcohol. It was with malicious pleasure that I handed over my license to the cashier when she asked “to see mine also.” Assuming that she thought I was under 21, I danced a fit of furious joy when she resigned to the fact that I had an out-of-state license but was somehow still getting beer. Gasp.

Orono’s Citgo, Big Apple and even Thriftway are being ridiculous. While some of these establishments require two forms of proper identification, others will not even accept out-of-state licenses.

I’ve seen all the tricks. They whip out their handy, dandy little “2003 Licensing Identification Manual” and peruse through the pages attempting to make me sweat. I am not a criminal. I don’t beat small children for the fun of it. Hell, I don’t even pee with the toilet seat down. For those reasons and many more, I should not be treated as though I were an illegal alien from some far off country when I’m trying to get-my-drink-on before the weekend begins. Just to let everyone in this state know, I do not plan on ever breaking down and spending my hard-earned money on something as stupid as a state-identification card just so I can buy beer without hassle.

It’s odd how a government document from a different state would be good enough for a Maine state trooper to issue me a speeding ticket, yet it’s not good enough for some po-dunk package store to sell my a six-pack of beer.

Marshall Dury is a junior journalism major.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2003, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.