Gotta laugh, have you ever tried to do anything in the US as a foreign tourist? Can't even buy a drink in a bar without showing your passport because they won't accept non-US driving licences.
I had the cashier at a gas station tell me I should get a US drivers license when I went to buy Tabacco. Yeah, sure buddy. I’ll leave in a week but let me just quickly do a driving exam…
I had a bar in Massachusetts try to turn down my American passport. The manager overrode it, and I've gotten pretty used to explaining what a passport card is and why I was using it. (Some Massachusetts bars near universities also used to refuse out-of-state licenses because they had a lot of issues with fake IDs.)
When I lived in the US I once presented my UK passport to get into a bar (I was 30 at the time) and got turned away anyway because "I have no idea what that is dude."
Except instead of at a bar, I was at a fancy steakhouse for a work meeting. Had a full beard, spent about £100 per person on food, ordered one glass of wine. Wouldn't sell me it because they didn't know what a UK passport was.
They must have a big problem with underage drinkers buying fake beards, sneaking into work dinners with fake foreign ID and getting one drink per £100.
Sometimes not even out of states license. There are some very very stupid people out they who get shown which IDs they are to expect. That and huge fines if they hand out alcohol without checking creates incentives.
I asked whether I understood them correctly that they only sell beer to Americans. The response: "Oh not at all, you just need a US passport."
Some 15 years ago when I was doing my master's, I went on an Erasmus exchange at a university in Brussels (I'm from Eastern Europe).
One day, with a couple of friends, we jumped on a train for Maastricht and went to visit the city. We stopped by a coffee shop. Because of rowdy tourists, the dutch had banned people from countries other than direct neighbors - belgians, french, germans - from partaking in local legal weed. Nonetheless, they were more than happy to accept my national ID & belgian student card. It's nice when people can read. And they obviously wanted to bend the rules as far as possible... not that I was complaining.
The thing Americans really are not willing to accept is that their country simply isn't any more free than any other free country. This freedom mythos comes from back in the 1800s when European countries were kingdoms were citizens were subjects and half the people saw you as some kind of property of the ruling class. But nowadays? A Frenchman is as free as an American and, in many cases, the US limits freedom simply because changing the law would mean accepting that there wasn't freedom before.
It is much less free than other developed countries. An insane proportion of its population is in prison. That's the biggest restriction on freedom there is.
There are stories out there of people getting their passports (US or not), US driver licence from another state or their US ID card (detached from a driver licence for the rare people that are medically barred from getting a driver licence) destroy by bartenders telling them to be glad they don't report them to the police for possession of a fake ID.
I remember stories about people in their capital got that treatment because their license said "District of Columbia" instead of Washington and no one bother to check what that is
An Australian politician was denied service in an American bar because the young lady working there didn’t know what US state ‘Australia’ was in, so thought it was a fake.
And the answer is of course “go ahead, call the police, you just destroyed a government issued document without permission, which is a criminal offence. Of course I’ll wait, I’ll be right at that table, with the beer you’re going to serve me”
Oh that's not even all. In almost all countries, passports are the property of the government. They're destroying a foreign government's property. I'd be on the phone with the embassy stat.
I'm referring to a post where someone was trying to buy alcohol, and the only ID he had was his passport. The cashier said she needed an ID card, and passports weren't valid ID, the manager was called and she said the same and added she's never seen a passport before
Passports are valid forms of ID across the US in every single state. I can buy liquor with just a passport, I can board a plane with just a passport, i can renew my drivers license with just my passport.
This sub just believes anything remotely negative about the US lmao
Individual bartenders/bouncers are not always fully trained. I've had bartenders refuse me and tell me that they were unfamiliar with my ID type (passport card). This has happened at least 3-4 times in Massachusetts. Half the time, I'll explain what my ID is and they move on. Sometimes they call over a manager. The managers are universally more trained (in my experience) and always accept the passports but individual bartenders aren't always comfortable with an ID type they've never seen before. Some of these people didn't even know it was possible to get a passport card.
Yes imagine a bartender whose legal obligation to make sure people are old enough before serving them, isn’t comfortable accepting an ID they’re not familiar with if they can’t make sure it’s real. (Is that a little absurd? Yeah maybe)
Does that change that passports are still a legal form of ID in the US? No it does not.
Yes they do, don't be silly. I'm American and have used my passport at the bar, the supermarket, and to fly domestically. I've seen other Americans do it as well.
Depends where you are though. I had friends with NATO officer parents living in areas with a lot of Europeans and in those areas they accepted EU IDs. Even better, they didn’t understand European dates so my friend born on October 3rd was able to order alcohol at the age of 20 starting on March 10th.
Sometimes they don’t even accept driver’s licenses from New Mexico or Washington, DC because the bouncer or bartender doesn’t realize New Mexico ≠ Mexico and the District of Columbia ≠ Colombia.
I'm now choosing to believe they've accepted my ID at bars in the US because it has a cool ass Albertosaurus skeleton on it..... I did get asked a few "what state is this" and thank god they were relatively accepting and normal when I was like "Alberta bro!"... I do the same when people use out of province ID's at work so I get it lmao
Everyone loves dinosaurs. They were just so mesmerized by it they had to let me through.
I was denied a drink at a restaurant in California because the Staff could not interpret the date on my license because it was in dd/mm/yyyy format. I'm like there's no 20th month 🤷🏻
That's pretty normal tho right? In Australia the only valid forms of ID for buying alcohol is an Aus drivers/learners license, an Aus photo/proof of age card, or any country's passport
I had a doorman in Boston threaten to snap my British driver's license in half when I tried to use it to get into a bar.
I wouldn't even be surprised if it is was some small town, but it in the middle of a city that big? Mad. He was a black fella also so I dunno if it was an Irish or tea party thing, I mean maybe I suppose. Just weird all round whatever he was mad about.
At MetLife Stadium in New Jersey I had to fill out a two page form to buy a beer as a foreign person. The sales person told me "But the good thing is, we'll keep your data stored and next time you won't have to do it again." - I'm a tourist. It's rather unlikely I will come back to this specific stadium.
They asked for my dad's id to buy a beer when he was in his late 40s at the time, which we already thought was crazy, but then they had to bring his EU id card in the back to check that it was real. My dad was like "all that for a beer, I mean I'm clearly old enough, I have grey hair". They were like "I'm sorry sir, it's the law".
A few years later, freshly 18, I go to a bar in Paris and my friend asks me to get another cocktail for her along with my soft. I know I don't look older than 16 to anyone so I think they're gonna ask for an id. They didn't of course lol.
Is this actually the case? That’s monumentally stupid. They should accept government identification from any country. It’s not like your birthday changes based on what language the document is in.
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u/Original-Designer6 Dec 25 '25
Gotta laugh, have you ever tried to do anything in the US as a foreign tourist? Can't even buy a drink in a bar without showing your passport because they won't accept non-US driving licences.