Max says…

I realise that supermarkets have to cover their own backs with respect to the sale of alcohol and tobacco. However the supermarket policies and the law informing those policies seem to differ drastically. Retailers aren’t legally allowed to sell alcohol or tobacco to persons under the age of eighteen. Most supermarket policies require that their staff ask for ID of any persons who look under the age of 25.

I haven’t yet been abroad, and I don’t drive. As such I do not posses either of the forms of ID that retailers consider adequate to prove who I am, and my age. I do have a birth certificate, which when produced in conjunction with credit/debit cards might be enough to convince a sympathetic checkout clerk that I am who I say I am, and am indeed aged over 18.

I certainly don’t think I look younger than 18!  I have a full beard and a hair line that is receding embarrassingly rapidly.  In fact, the majority of checkout clerks who question my age are pimply youths who hardly look old enough to be custodians of the cigarettes and booze I am old and ugly enough to choose to buy for myself.

Since I have been deprived of cigarettes and almost deprived of the beer I have been looking forward to relaxing with all day, I take justified objection to what feels like discrimination.  A checkout clerk can refuse to serve me because they decide on a whim that I look younger than 25; seven years older than legally required, and I am unable to prove my age because I neither drive nor have been abroad.

In summary – BLARGH!