Law on I.D

[Sonak]

My friend went into our local conveneince store to buy some cigarettes she is 19 and she took her I.D. with her just in case.

The lady at the till did ask for I.D. and my friend showed her University I.D. card which had her d.o.b on it.
The lady at the till said we do not except this and turned her away. I later went in to try myself & I am 25 and they refused me because they thought I wanted to buy fags for an under age girl, but my friend was born in 1989 which shows on her uni card so can they do this by law?!

Any advice please! thanks

[WoWo]

They can refuse to server anybody they like, simple as that.

I could knock up a university card in about 5 minutes on a computer.

[squarebear]

They will probably insist on one of about three types of card as anyone can knock up a believable id card.

http://www.photo-id.co.uk/

[bednobs]

this is nothing to d with the law (or being "illegal") really. the shop must satisfy itself that whoever purchases age resrticted goods is the age they say they are, if your friend couldnt prove to THEIR satisfaction she was old enough, they did eactly the right thing by turning her down, or could have faced a fine.

As for you - well it sounds like you WERE trying to buy fags for someone THEY thought was underage, so i can see their point.

Shops, if they like could refuse to allow entr to people wearing yello jumpers, or peole with brown hair - they dont HAVE to sell to anybody

[KRUSTYMAN]

My wife worked on the tobacco kiosk in a large national supermarket chain. She got this problem everyday, several times a day and the abuse she got from customers she would'nt or couldn't serve because of the risk of being fined - herself not the company - almost resulted in a nervous breakdown. She recently had to take a month off sick and has only now gone back to work on the checkouts because she physically cannot go back into the kiosk. Shoppers such as yourself are doing this, there are, as other posters have mentioned, only certain types of legal I.D that they accept. The amount of abuse she gets from ordinary customers who choose to vent all their problems on her and her colleagues is bad enough without trying to browbeat people into accepting what they think is right when it plainly isn't is disgusting.

[factor-fiction]

When I was at sixth form college we were all given student union cards showing we were 18 (even though we were 16/17) just to help us get served in pubs. The Uni card isn'ta sufficiently reliable form of ID

[dawn36]

i work in a shop and if we question a person for id it must have the pass logo on it with photo and date of birth, we don not accept college cards as these do not have the pass logo on them. a photo driving licence or passport is also accepted.

[Mully79]

I was asked for ID at Asda a few months ago when buying alcohol. I am 28 so I laughed and told her my age and that I was very flattered, and out of embarrassment, the checkout lady served me with no further remarks.

The fact is, the person who serves you also gets fined if caught serving someone underage. And if you're low paid then why would you even risk serving someone who looks young and has no suitable ID? Certainly not a job I'd want to do, given the flak they have to take on a daily basis.

Just accept that your friend is still very young and should always take a couple of different forms of ID with her if she decides to buy cigarettes or alcohol in future - it saves this kind of hassle!

And yes I doctored official documents and made fake ID cards when I was underage, back then it was a little easier to get away with but now because it's so easy to do on your home PC they are more vigilent.