137 underage patrons were cited at one Wisconsin bar

Originally published at: 137 underage patrons were cited at one Wisconsin bar | Boing Boing

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Granted, you can drink underage if you are with a parent in Wisconsin, but damn, that’s a lot of children for one parent.

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“You can’t give a baby booze unless you’re over 18!”

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90s classic, bravo, sir.

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Policeman O’Halloran: That’s a fine broth of a boy you have there. Is he on the bottle yet?

Curly: I should say not. He don’t smoke, drink nor chew.

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Sounds like someone’s gonna lose their liquor license.

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Me and everyone else who’s ever been to Madison:
nod-nodding

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every year_Q0bf2

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From what I have read, you can now order fake drivers licenses from China for about $100 that are basically indistinguishable from the real thing. Even the barcode scans correctly with the apps the door workers use.

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Does ChurchKey bar still exist? Cause that’d be my first guess based on my UW experience. :grinning:

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Yes!

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In simpler times, all forms of ID could be purchased from companies advertising in the back of Rolling Stone magazine.
I still remember the look the bartender that had been serving me for a year gave me when we told him we were celebrating my 18th birthday (legal age at the time in NJ)

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Only 137? Must have been a slow night.

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Don’t tell me, let me guess: the bar closest to the U of W campus?

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Underage drinking at bars very close to UW campuses is something of a tradition, as I understand it from my parents who grew up in a smaller UW campus town. :thinking:

You know when you’re driving around the west end of the UP, and you’re not sure if you’re in Michigan or Wisconsin? (OK, probably hasn’t happened to a plurality of the commetariate) Look at how many corners of the next blinking yellow or red intersection contain bars. If it’s more than one, you’re in Wisconsin. If it’s 3 of the 4, you’re in Eagle River, and definitely went too far. :smirk:

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Yeah, I’m not the least bit surprised! Want to beat that record? Try Janesville! :smiley:

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It Is Yes GIF by Your Happy Workplace

I was given a someone’s ID within the first week or two of starting at a UW school. They looked nothing like me but it still got me in bars except for the first bar I went to. Got there with a group of people, bartender checks our ID’s, doesn’t believe mine for a second, but I somehow managed to momentarily convince him ( I did have all the id info memorized). So, we ordered a pitcher and started playing pool. Bartender walks over a short while later, singles me out and questions my ID again. I gave my arguments again, he was being really chill about the whole situation and you could just see how much it was bugging him, so I told him the truth, he thanked me and let us finish our pitcher. The next bar we went to that night didn’t even bother carding me.

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Not being a Wisconsan, this sounds like a pretty egregious example, so maybe this is warranted. But in general I don’t like this approach in our US laws. My dad owned and operated a bar/restaurant in Maine when I was in Highschool, and it seemed unfair to put all the burden of sussing out clever underage drinkers on the establishment. And most of the consequences, too.
One 20-year-old with a good fake ID could’ve gotten him shut down, but the underage drinker would maybe get a fine, if anything, even though they knew they weren’t legally allowed to drink there.
IIRC, at the time Canada seemed to have laws that better shared the burden of such infractions.

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Having the drinking age set at 21 in the USA leads to ridiculous situations like this, and ends up doing more harm than good.

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