What a bad experience I had on Canada Day, visiting Halifax for the first time in almost five years with my wife who had never been. We went down to Alderney Landing to catch the free concert and fireworks and got in line for the beer tent. Then, when my wife presented her valid, English language identification card she was informed that she wouldn’t be allowed in without her passport.
Passport? Because she is not Canadian she needs a passport to drink? My wife is 35 years old. She is Korean. Although my wife may look young for her age, it would seem to me impossible to mistake her for being under nineteen—but perhaps I am overestimating the intelligence of the security staff. I protested. He told me that he had to ID anyone who appeared to be under 65 years old; that if a liquor inspector were to come to the event and find her without a passport, he would be liable. 65 years old?
This is the policy of a lunatic. It serves no one. The organizers of the event have to spend extra money on security staff to meticulously check the ID of every person entering the drinking area. Further, they earn less money from beer sales than they could because of all those people well into adulthood who are unaccustomed to bringing along an ID to enter a drinking establishment. But the worst part of all is the message that this passport nonsense sends to international visitors to the city: you are unwelcome. That’s exactly how my wife felt: discriminated against for being a foreigner.
Even if we could have enjoyed a perfect evening without consuming alcohol, the arbitrary incivility of all this put enough of a damper on things that we were rather annoyed for the rest of the night. I’ve used my Canadian ID as proof of age in Korea. I know, furthermore, that a Korean driver’s licence is acceptable to drive in Canada. But the ID of a foreign woman who is unmistakably older than 19 is not enough? Whose genius idea is this and why haven’t they been fired?
What excessive IDing policies like this do is inconvenience tens of thousands of people on the off-chance that one underager in a million might slip through and get a beer. God forbid that an underage person consumes alcohol. I mean, we all know what will happen then—like everyone else we know, he or she will grow up into a well-adjusted member of our community, maybe, like many others, to be employed as bar security. —Married and of Age
This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2012.
No, it is not ‘enough’. Don’t blame some poor sap for the reality of the laws, licensing, and enforcement/fines that we have around here. Fuck, we just got Sunday Shopping not too long ago, think about it.
This is NS, logic never resided here, we’re so fucking backwoods sometimes we can make N Korea seem fucking free and open.
I’ve never heard of IDing everyone who appears “under 65”. The NSLC IDs everyone appearing under 25. If that’s the standard in a liquor store owned by the government, it should be good enough for a beer tent at Alderney.
Sounds more like the guard made up a shit story because he was confused by your wife’s foreign ID and had clue zero as to what to do.
You should have asked to see his supervisor.
I agree its a fucked up policy, but she should have some Canadian ID. they’re 18 bucks or something at access NS
I actually witnessed a similar incident occur at a downtown bar once. The explanation the waitress gave was that the ID presented wasn’t in their book/list/whatever, so they had no way of determining whether or not it was fake.
Actually Lisa the NSLC now checks for ID on anyone who looks under 30.
Also, he is just following the rules. Try getting into reflections with an out of province ID and you are out of luck. Some places are just more strict. The guy just wanted to keep his job.
If you’re from out of province, you’re supposed to be asked for two forms of acceptable ID.
If your wife only has foreign ID, she’s an idiot for only carrying one form of it around. The NS government isn’t required to recognized ID cards from other countries/provinces as valid IDs and it’s only common sense to carry around a passport because that *is* considered acceptable ID wherever you go.
If she came to Canada and still hasn’t gotten an ID because she’s too lazy or because she’s a tourist, it’s not unreasonable to expect she’d carry around her passport in her purse. *shrug*
… or abuse her skin so she looks old enough.
she should take up smoking.
I was there and I hope to god I don’t look like I’m 65 because I wasn’t carded.
You guys must think Liquor Inspectors (LI) are some kind of troll that only comes out from beneath their bridge when there is some poor, innocent to harrass. I can see the security guard wanting to protect his job (barely), but do you honestly think the LI would disagree with the passport just to be an ass? Fuck me, common sense has left the building…
Bars do accept passports – or used to. I’ve seen it.
Shitty situation, OB. I’d damn well say I’m unmistakably older than 19 too … I’m older than your wife, but I still get carded. But I’m from here, have a NS drivers license and always carry it with me if I’m out … so I don’t bother getting upset … I just grin and hand it over … and I admit that I get a little chuckle when I see the change in facial expression of the person looking at my ID when they see my age.
The 65 thing … makes no sense … I’m hoping it was a mistake. Maybe you misheard or maybe the person relaying the info misheard his instruction. I’ve heard the ‘if you look under 25’ bit more than once … never 65.
There was a to and fro here a while back regarding acceptable identification in drinking establishments … I’m a little fuzzy, but I believe the conclusion was … there is no official list of forms of ID that an establishment is required to accept.
Does NSLC check under a niqab ?
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/0…
I hope you didn’t use the phrase “arbitrary incivility” on Alderney Landing. That would have done it right there and then.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I’ve heard a bouncer say this on more than one occasion. It’s a ridicous policy with an arbitrary number for a minimum age requirement. Why not just say “anyone without NS ID can piss off and go back where you came from”? If there ever was a time to relax a stupid policy, it would be when you have an early 30’s looking man claiming an obviously foreign wife with an international ID are on vacation from their new country of origin. Are door people so stupid, that they actually think that this is an elaborate plan to get a few “underage” beers by highschool student. If the LI is wandering around asking for ID from 30-65 year olds in order to harrass event sponsors/bar owners for “lax” ID regimine, this is a gross misuse of authority. This is not the first bitch of this type, so I would assume that this is not an isolated incident, and it seems this needs to be addressed.
Aww, muffin. Maybe he could tell that you were a dick and wanted to give you a hard time, OB. Or then again, maybe it’s policy not to accept foreign ID and he wasn’t willing to risk his job just so some pretentious fucker and his wife could buy beer.
this is the first i ever heard tell of that shit. produce an i.d., they would have had a very hard time getting me to show it. did you register a complaint with the ones that were putting this on? did you ask them if they were fucking nuts? did you give them a good kick in thee nether regions? i would have asked him/her for their fucking i.d. then.
what a stupid fucking idiot, to be asking that of an obvious older person.
When i was in my 20’s I had a dickhead at a NS liquor store refuse to serve me…because i didn’t have a liquor ID. Which I refused to purchase…because I owned a passport & a Seaman’s International Book, which are acceptable anywhere on the planet.
WHen I handed him my passport & was told “not good enough” I asked for him to call a supervisor over here, he told me he could call the police easier & the police officer (who was there providing ‘security’) came over checked my passport & told the dickhead to serve me.
Its a pain to carry your passport, especially if you are worried you may lose it…but if/when you are dealing withthe buracracy of any Government organization, its the best ID you can have.
BYOB. Problem solved.