Last Friday I popped into the local Safeway (yes, they still have Safeway over here, not a Morrison’s in sight) to get my reward for a tiring and stressful week, some fresh soup and a couple of beers. I got to the checkout (I mean, the register), and was asked if I was over 21. I don’t always get asked this; it’s a good while since I looked that youthful. However on this occasion I was actually refused my two beers, not because I looked too young, not because I didn’t have government-issued ID, but because – and only because – my ID didn’t have a written phsyical description on it. “You what?” I asked, utterly non-plussed. After all, my ID – a Permanent Resident Card – has my photo clearly printed on it. It has my name, my fingerprint, my age (surely the most imporant bit) and a special biometric chip containing who knows what. If you ran this card through a Homeland Security check it would probably tell you my GCSE results.

“No, it needs a physical description on it, or we can’t accept it,” came the cashier’s uncompromising response. I half expected her to say, “computer says no,” and cough on me. I asked to see the manager. He even admitted he thought I was over 21, but said that the store couldn’t sell me beer if I didn’t have an ID with a physical description on it. “But I’ve bought beer here loads of times!” I pleaded, my fake Hugh Grant Brit accent morphing slowly back into my very real Grant Mitchell London accent. The manager, who also looked younger than me, did not care, saying that it was the law and that if they sold me beer they would be prosecuted. Not only that, but every other time I’d bought beer there had been illegal. Even though I had a federal government ID card that not only proves my age but is good enough for me to get onto an aeroplane with. I told him it was discrimination against non-Californians, and people who do not hold driving licenses. He told me to look up the law. I did.

Sure enough, it says that the ID needed to prove your age needs a written description of the person. The list of ‘acceptable’ IDs included State-issued ID cards, California driving licenses and military ID cards. It did not include Permanent Resident ID cards or Passports (the only offical ID card most British visitors have). However, neither did the list of unacceptable forms of identification (which include such things as work ID cards and photo-less driving licenses). But the most interesting thing was that I discovered that it is not illegal to sell someone who is over 21 alcohol. It is illegal if someone is under 21, but not over. Safeway would not have been breaking the law by selling me beer, particulary as the manager acknowledged I was over 21. Many stores and bars have policies that mean they check the ID of everyone under thirty. Many take it further and card everyone that simply looks under thirty (you’re supposed to be flattered, not offended, apparently). And others still have a policy of carding everybody under forty. Forty!

Most Americans accept this. They don’t really care, they know that they’re just doing their job and it’s no skin off of their nose. Because I’m from a different culture I find it a little ridiculous most of the time, but as I’ve never been refused in a year of living here, it’s not been that big an issue. But to be refused two beers by someone who barely looks over 21 themself, because of a fairly minor technicality? Because they don’t recognise Permanent Resident Cards and Passports as identification? It does discriminate against non-Californians. You’d expect a tourist to have a passport; you wouldn’t expect them to have a California driver’s license. The Safeway incident showed a complete lack of judgement on the part of the store, and an interpretation of the law that was based on no common sense. Yet to be fair, in a college town, all they are doing is covering themselves. They are so fearful of legal retribution that they would forfeit selling beer to thirty-year old Brits. The local Police put enormous amounts of pressure on them. It is the American mix of law and drinking that has made them so.

Some think that the stringent drinking laws of the United States are a relic of the Prohibiton era. It may be part of the traditionally puritan nature of the American nation. A quick look at the list of minimum drinking ages around the world puts the US at the top, alongside places like Egypt and Malaysia. Britain’s own recently-repealed licensing laws date from World War I, when pubs were told to close early so that munitions workers didn’t come to the factory with a hangover. Most places ban drinking the drinking of any alcohol outside (boosting sales of brown paper-bags). Some counties (in states such as Oregon) are designated ‘dry counties’, places where the sale of alcohol is actually illegal. Davis itself was ‘dry’ until fairly recently; until the 1980s it was not available to buy anywhere outside the bars, due to a three-mile exclusion zone around the university campus. I shouldn’t be so surprised, I suppose. Next week will be the first anniversary of my arrival in this strange Land of the ‘Free’. I wonder if I’ll be allowed a glass of champagne to celebrate.

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” -Benjamin Franklin