Show Me Some ID, Kid

At first, our author was flattered by the constant requests to prove she wasn’t a minor. Then, she decided it was being overdone — and it really got annoying when the bouncer kept insisting her official German identity card was counterfeit.

The first time, I thought it was a compliment. The bouncer in The Churchill — a bar in the Castro nightlife district — asked me for my ID card. Could it be, I thought, that I hadn’t wasted my money on the expensive face creams I had bought but not yet tossed out? The second time it happened, at another bar, I wrote it off to poor lighting at the entrance. It wasn’t until the third time I was asked for my ID again by a bouncer that I finally caught on: They asked everybody for ID, regardless of whether you were in your 20s or getting ready to start drawing on your pension. It was a sobering discovery.

You can’t drink alcohol in the United States unless you’re over 21 years old. And they take that rule seriously — very seriously. They do regular checks in bars and restaurants to make sure kids don’t get one sip of beer. So, the bouncer in every bar — or if they don’t have a bouncer, then the bartender — asks to see your identification card. If you forget and leave it at home, as I once did, then you’re stuck with looking old and drinking your soda pop. The guy behind the bar is adamant, and everyone can come and point to the crow’s feet around your eyes. What some of us won’t do for a drink!

Without showing your ID, you can’t even get a beer in a “dive,” the U.S. equivalent of a Bavarian “Boazn” — one of those seedy watering holes at the street corner. Even the bouncers at the hoity-toity P-1 disco in Munich that used to have pretty strict entry rules could take lessons from the gorillas guarding these doors, like the bouncers at Molotov’s, a punk-rock bar in Lower Haight where the customers all have long, greasy hair and very few untattooed spots on their bodies.

The bouncer sits enthroned on a barstool at the entrance. Aspirant after aspirant has to line up meekly and neatly before him. The bouncer graciously takes each ID card, studies each photo, studies each face, studies the date of birth on the card, then studies the face one more time. Only after he nods are you allowed to enter the establishment, accompanied by the bouncer’s warning glance that says, “You’re only here on probation, buddy.” What a warm welcome!

Restaurants, as well as supermarkets, check age. Cashiers don’t let anybody by with a six-pack, unless they see an ID card. What would we do without them?

It goes without saying that you can’t be seen in public carrying a bottle of beer, no matter how old you are. A picnic with friends on the beach? You make do with either a sugary soft drink, or you hide your beer in a little brown paper bag, a hide-and-seek game known as “brown-bagging it.” Between 1920 and 1933, alcoholic beverages were totally forbidden in America; this is apparently a relic left over from those days.

Alcohol-related misdeeds, especially traffic sins, will get you in front of a judge or even in jail quicker than you can say “bottoms up!” Even beverages with low alcohol content are better stored in the trunk of your car, not where the passengers sit. The suspicion that a driver could reach for a bottle while driving is enough to give some police officers real heartburn.

To make things even worse, most American bouncers have no idea where to begin with a German ID, as I discovered recently at the South Pacific Brewery in San Francisco. The bouncer there thought I was insulting him by presenting such an obviously fly-by-night identity card. Get outa here! His glance said it all: Damn tourists all think I must be stupid and don’t even bother to try a realistic looking fake!

If all the U.S. border guards quit at once, I know where they could easily find replacements for them — provided that when they applied, they had the right ID.