"Get yourself fired for me! Come on, help a friend out!"

[PepperElf]

Well, if she happened to have been sent undercover by a police officer to test our ID compliance, then yes it very much affects me. Sorry, Charlie.

O yeah. one of the bars in the city where sis lives got hit by a sting... dunno what happened exactly but... it was bad enough that they lost their license.


yes. a bar that lost the license to serve alcohol.
that's the kiss-of-death right there.

[Dilorenzo]

SC: Come on. One friend to another. It’s not going to affect you, is it? Let’s just pretend we didn’t have this conversation.

Well, since we're friends, can you loan me 300 pounds? I mean, you won't have enough to buy any drinks then, but since we're such goods friends I figure you won't mind.

[Jay 2K Winger]

All of a sudden an elderly man in the back corner gets up and shoves ID in the manager's face. Yep, the local ATF inspector. He turns to the crowd and annouces, "this establishment is now closed. Please finish your drinks and leave."

This is exactly what I'd be worried about if I worked in a bar and didn't get an ID from someone I carded. I don't know if the UK has an equivalent agency that polices liquor laws or whatever, but while CRML was talking about how anyone in the SCs' group could have been part of a sting, there could also have been the problem that someone witnessing the exchange might have been capable of blowing the whistle-- as he pointed out to the SCs.

They shot themselves in the foot.

When I worked at the movie theater and asked for ID, I did have someone try this whole thing.

Them: "Come on, be a friend!" (Of note, I actually did know them.)
J2K: "I'm not paid to be your friend. No ID, no ticket."

[Gizmo]

I'd love a follow up to this - I can just imagine them daisy chaining down the town of pubs and bars and each time getting scuppered.

[eltf177]

I don't want to threadjack but this story does fit here...

Several of my cousins have a favorite watering hole. They're good friends with the owner who's a really nice guy. His policy is clear: No ID, no booze. PERIOD. He drove this motto into every employee and manager.

One night while my cousins are drinking several girls come in and order. One doesn't have ID. The waitress says 'no'. The girls whine and bitch. Manager tells waitress to serve them. She refuses. Manager serves the girls. All of a sudden an elderly man in the back corner gets up and shoves ID in the manager's face. Yep, the local ATF inspector. He turns to the crowd and annouces, "this establishment is now closed. Please finish your drinks and leave."

The place was closed for about a month. The owner had to really jump through many hoops and pay huge fines to get his liquor license back. He shit-canned the offending manager that night (I believe he filed a lawsuit against him as well, mostly to prove his innocense). He had a meething with the employees (who lost a month's wages while all this got sorted out, he lost several good employees who couldn't afford to wait), stating THIS was why he had the 'No ID, no booze' rule in the first place!

So no, serving an obvously underage client is _not_ in your firm's best interest, not to mention opening yourself up for all kinds of trouble...

[RealUnimportant]

Maniacal laugh...

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

They left. I got on the phone and called rival bar to let them know they were coming.

They never consider the possibility that if they're a complete asshole to the staff, that the staff could be as much of an ass back to them.

Just a lot more subtle. Such as calling the rival bar and warning them ahead of time as an example.

Bet you anything they didn't find any place to go drinking that night.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

Good for you for standing your ground. It's just not worth the risk and that guy was being completely dickish. I certainly hope the same thing happened to him at pub down the street.

[Opalin]

"Only 300? Seriously? Sir, that is far below the 10 million that I would require, half entirely for myself because I'd never be able to get a job again after blowing this one, the other half to pay off a lawyer, bribes to the county, the bar... How much would you get? Oh, about 20$ worth of cheap beer, why?"

[Moosenogger]

He's bitching about her having to wait another year to drink legally?! We can't drink until 21 here - 18 is nothing. I wonder how that SC would have reacted if you told him you were contacting the police. He was trying to purchase alcohol for a minor...

[Kereminde]

. . . they drummed into us the two times I had to take Alcoholic Beverage training for being a server, very hard. "If you have any doubts, ask for ID. If you don't get to see ID, they don't get to have their drinks. If you, by some terrible temporary lost of sanity, serve anyway you will lose your job. To start with. You can be fined a lot of money. You could possibly do time."

"So no matter how much they offer to tip you, ask yourself if it's worth your employment and a trip to a jail cell." *beat* "And realize they probably wouldn't have held up their end either, and might just report you themselves."

[HotelMinion]

even if it weren't aganist the law i still wouldn't. i don't serve douchebags, especially alcohol. > gets them douchy-er.

[XCashier]

When are people going to realize, you have to be of legal age AND have ID to be served at a bar!

I love how he's all, "help a friend out!" Yeah pal, a true friend wouldn't put their friends in such a spot. No amount of money, cajoling, wheeling-dealing or threatening is going to make a server risk unemployment, a hefty fine and a jail sentence! The law is the LAW.

[downforit2008]

I've seen that all the time. Stupid customers trying to get you to bend the law just because they're planning on spending such-and-such-amount of money there. It isn't like I get paid on commission per sale made either! Whether they spend 5 bucks on beer or not, there won't even be any change to my paycheck.

2 years ago, it was a hot summer day and I was resting for a moment after pushing in a bunch of straggling shopping carts. My boss encourages us to rest for a few minutes because a bunch of carts aren't worth risking our health over in the 100-degree heat. A teenage boy who was clearly 15 or 16 approached me with a proposition.

SC: Can I give you this ten dollars so you can go inside and buy me a pack of cigarettes?
Me: (sizing the guy up and knowing how young he is)Why don't you just do it yourself?
SC: I uh...don't have my ID on me. Come on, help a customer out.
Me: Look, I know the rules. You have to be 19 years old to buy cigarettes here(Utah state law)and you clearly aren't 19.
SC: That's why I'm asking YOU to do it for me. Come on, no one will know.
Me: I will know, and I'm not going to be putting my job at risk and being arrested just because I'm buying tobacco products for minors. So why don't you just go home and come back in three or four years when you ARE of legal age to buy them?
SC: You can't talk to me like that. I'm a customer!
Me(stares him down):You're just a kid. And that excuse isn't going to work on me.
SC(starts throwing a fit and screaming in my face):THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT!!! ALL I ASKED YOU DO IS ONE SIMPLE THING AND YOU WON'T DO IT! I SHOULD NEVER COME BACK HERE AGAIN! YOU'RE JUST A WIMP WHO IS AFRAID TO DO ANYTHING I ASK!
Me:(turning red in the face and snapping back)If you don't get out of my face, something really bad is going to happen to you, you little punk. Now get the hell away from me!

SC retreats, cursing up a storm and shrieking to his waiting friends about how bad the service is at my store. An assistant manager was coming off his lunch and going through the parking lot, and he asked me what all the commotion was about. I told him that I refused to take a minor's request in buying cigarettes for him and jokingly said, "Because I didn't do what the customer wanted, that should put me in big trouble with the managers!"
The AM laughed at me and said I did a good job, and because of what I did, it's going to GUARANTEE that I have a job the next morning. He said that there's a bunch of punks that do the same thing every week and this isn't the first time he's heard about it.

I remembered this incident because not only did I put it down word-per-word in my journal, but also put it in my memory bank on something that the customer is NOT always right on!

[South Texan]

I got on the phone and called rival bar to let them know they were coming.

The vindictive part of me had been hoping you would do just that.