"Excuse me, mate": buying drinks for underage girls who wait outside off-licences

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I was just asked for the second time in a week if I would buy a bottle of wine for two teenage girls. There are about 15. Amusingly, these were the same two girls who asked me to buy them a bottle of wine last Friday night. Oxford girls are great.

I said no last week because, well, they were already shit-faced. I said no this week because I'd just seen them get thrown out of Somerfields after being IDed and I didn't like the way they abused the woman behind the checkout. Oxford girls are potty mouths.

Have any of you ever bought drink for an underage person? For cute teenagers? For a younger sibling so they can impress their friend/S.O.? For complete strangers? If so, how young is too young? How drunk is too drunk? How my-parents-know-their-parents is too my-parents-know-their-parents? And did you do the obvious thing and insist on an invite to the party to, ahem, supervise?

Stories please.

― caek (caek), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:05 (twenty years ago)

i bought some girls a pack of cigarettes the other week

― harry galveston (gareth), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:09 (twenty years ago)

I don't understand why anyone would do this. Or rather, I do understand, except the facts are that (a) they think you're gross and do not want to make out with you, plus (b) you are not gross and do not seriously want to make out with them.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:11 (twenty years ago)

I bought underage people drink when I was underage myself. But I don't think I've done it since. Maybe my sister when she was 16/17 but she could get it herself then.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:12 (twenty years ago)

I've done it a couple of times for some random kids hanging before the gorcery store. But I only did it because they weren't drunk already, didn't look like they were 12 or 13, and didn't want a ridiculous amount of booze per person (so I knew they weren't likely to get alcohol poisoning or pass out in the snow). The reason I did it was because I remember how it was when I was their age, and I'm not too old not to be sympathetic to their plight.

I've got lots of friends younger than me, and before they turned 18 I often bought alcohol for them, but I think that's a non-issue since they were friends.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:12 (twenty years ago)

Me too. Only when I was underage and an idiot.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:13 (twenty years ago)

i bought some underage girls once haha

― not really, Friday, 21 April 2006 19:13 (twenty years ago)

I mean, I've once been in the same situation as those kids, why shouldn't I symphatize with them? If they look sensible enough and I buy them maybe 5 bottles of beer per head, nothing awful is likely come out of it.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:16 (twenty years ago)

i've done it once, some boys hanging around outside the happy shopper, i felt sorry for them becaus they lived in such a boring horrible hole and they looked about 16 anyway. never had to get anyone to do it for me, somehow always got served no probs. (from like age 12, not 7 or something.)

― emsk ( emsk), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:17 (twenty years ago)

i dunno, i just did it on autopilot. i like to help a person out, i dont really think about it

― charltonlido (gareth), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:24 (twenty years ago)

I never asked anyone to do this for me. I always had a friend (Johnny, if you're out there, thanks!) who could get served so got me four cans of Wards and keep the change thx v much. One year we went camping and all chipped in £20 or so to get enough for the weekend. Things didn't quite add up when we broke out the beer, and it turned out he had spent £15 of it on a pre-release 12" of Born Slippy by Underworld. Such is life.

I never bought any for my little brother because he never asked. I guess I would have done.

Tuomas: what % is beer in Finland? Five bottles for a kid whose tolerance you don't know would be straying into danger-of–stomach pumping-territory in the UK.

― caek (caek), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:26 (twenty years ago)

The beer they sell in the stores 4,7% max, and it comes in 0,33 litre bottles. So five bottles isn't that much. I could easily drink nine or ten when I was a teen.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:29 (twenty years ago)

5 bottles is like 3 pints or less, hardly stomach-pump territory! Unless the kid is real lightweight, and then they deserve it.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:30 (twenty years ago)

i bought 4 cans of strongbow for two 16ish girls. I drank when i was sixteen, i don't see it as a particulary abhorrent thing to do. I did, however, leave the cigarettes that i'd bought for myself, with my last fiver, in the bag as i handed it over. If i'd realised sooner i could have chased them down!

― Slumpman (Slump Man), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:36 (twenty years ago)

I was spectacularly ill off a four pack of Wards (half litre, maybe 4%) when I was about 13. No stomach-pump, but it wasn't pretty.

Weddings are great for this though. Buying a G&T for a bridesmaid and a pint for her boyfriend who are both 13. Inevitably they don't like their drinks, so not only do they think you're cool, but you get to drink the drinks. WIN.

― caek (caek), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:36 (twenty years ago)

ever heard of a "narc?"

― it happens, trust me, Friday, 21 April 2006 19:39 (twenty years ago)

That would be entrapment. They pay kids to catch shopkeepers because they intended to sell the alcohol to someone. If you walk past the off-licence you're not doing it with the intent of helping someone out who is waiting outside. (IANAL.)

― caek (caek), Friday, 21 April 2006 19:45 (twenty years ago)

If you buy, you've intended to help someone out. It's not entrapment. Or, if it is, it still works because the cops are just watching. The kid is not a cop.

― it happens, trust me, Friday, 21 April 2006 20:17 (twenty years ago)

The most amusing thing about being approached by underage kids to buy booze for them is the swiftness with which you turn from a 'mate' into a 'cunt'.

― chap who would dare to be a nerd, not a geek (chap), Friday, 21 April 2006 20:28 (twenty years ago)

I was once asked to buy a cherry-flavored cigar from two 15-year-olds in Tennessee. I asked them if they wanted to roll a blunt and they giggled and were like "how do you know that????"

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 21 April 2006 20:37 (twenty years ago)

xpost, but the point is the crime would not have happened without the state's involement.

― caek (caek), Friday, 21 April 2006 21:12 (twenty years ago)

If I think they're legit, then I'm helping their desperate effort to make life bearable. If I think they're narcs, I'm going to politely decline. Gender got nothink to do with it.

― Boring Someone in Some Dark Cafe (noodle vague), Friday, 21 April 2006 21:17 (twenty years ago)

Caek, I have lived in Oxford for years but I have never had this happen to me. Where did it happen? Was that Somerfields in Summertown?

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 22 April 2006 11:16 (twenty years ago)

Yes.

― caek (caek), Saturday, 22 April 2006 11:33 (twenty years ago)

Tough neighbourhood.

― caek (caek), Saturday, 22 April 2006 11:33 (twenty years ago)

wonder if the girls were from Wychwood or Oxford High?

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 22 April 2006 11:41 (twenty years ago)

I was once carded in Hampstead on a Thursday night at the age of 25. This is the night where every single kid in North London tries to purchase from offies there, and I've never done it for anyone. The law in Britain is that the person has to 'appear' to be 18 - a little word that keeps the licensee fairly safe. My friend alongside, one of those teen Britpop journalists of the day, was not carded possibly owing to huge knockers.

― suzy (suzy), Saturday, 22 April 2006 12:08 (twenty years ago)

xpost, Dunno. They actually looked pretty tough for North Oxford. I'm guessing they weren't from St Edwards.

― caek (caek), Saturday, 22 April 2006 12:36 (twenty years ago)

Cherwell, gotta be.

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 22 April 2006 13:05 (twenty years ago)

ha, i got IDed on easter sunday morning. i think the muslim lady behind the checkout just disapproved of the fact that it was 10am, me and my friend a) had clearly been up all night and b) were completely wasted. i didn't help my cause by reacting with the words "but i'm...! i'm...er, robin, how old am i?"

we got the wine in the end hurrah.

― The Lex (The Lex), Sunday, 23 April 2006 08:46 (twenty years ago)

(the above is poss why no underage person has ever asked me to get the alcohol)

― The Lex (The Lex), Sunday, 23 April 2006 08:46 (twenty years ago)

The reason I did it was because I remember how it was when I was their age, and I'm not too old not to be sympathetic to their plight.

exactly. i've only done this once, but the lad was so polite and helpless-looking.

"mate, mate!"
"wot?"
"mate. can you go in there and buy two bottles of buckfast for me and him over there?"
"aw, fuck's sake. i'm late already and ... oh, fuck it, go on."

he was so pathetically grateful, it was incredible. he tried to give me money for doing and everything. i felt quite good about myself. which was probably wrong.

IIRC nobody ever bought me booze when i was a kid. being a short-arse, i wasn't great at getting served; although by the time i was 16 or 17 i'd realised it was basically a confidence thing. if you went in and said: "ooh, er, ooh, can i have, umm, beer, and, er, vodka" you'd get chucked out on yr arse. bowling in there saying: "hello my good man, please furnish me with six cans of your finest bentleys bitter" seemed to work wonders. surprising, really, when you'd imagine the response to be: "bentleys bitter? you obviously know nothing about alcohol at all. go on, clear off."

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Sunday, 23 April 2006 09:37 (twenty years ago)

Oh fuck I'd have thought all references to stout yeomen and the like would produce a yellow or red card, never mind the request for an ID card.

― suzy (suzy), Sunday, 23 April 2006 10:02 (twenty years ago)

ah: cunning psychology. if they were busy thinking you were a twat, they might not notice that you were an underage twat too ;)

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Sunday, 23 April 2006 10:06 (twenty years ago)

Now we're all just old twats.

I bought alcohol for my brother and his friends a few times, they were alays OK except one time when they all got stupid drunk and I became quite unpopular with a few parents; didn't bother again, I don't think.

― Ally C (Ally C), Sunday, 23 April 2006 10:26 (twenty years ago)

I got IDed buying a bottle of Baileys in the Co-op last Christmas.

― Alba (Alba), Sunday, 23 April 2006 10:29 (twenty years ago)

Which might explain why I never seem to get asked to do this either. I do get asked to buy fireworks though. I don't.

― Alba (Alba), Sunday, 23 April 2006 10:30 (twenty years ago)

That would not have worked on my father the barman, who is far from the sharpest knife in the drawer. He was 6'2" by the age of 14 so never, ever had this problem and passed the no-card gene to my "little" sister.

― suzy (suzy), Sunday, 23 April 2006 10:35 (twenty years ago)

I got some kids chucked out of a pub in Clapham last weekend, but largely because they were being arseholes, breaching pub etitquete, had really annoying posh voices and were called things like "Jemima".

That and I could never get served when I was their age and I'M STILL BITTER a mere decade later.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Monday, 24 April 2006 07:45 (twenty years ago)

By which I mean "pub etiquette", obviously. My Ts are all over the place this morning...

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Monday, 24 April 2006 07:45 (twenty years ago)

What etiquette-breaches were they up to?

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 24 April 2006 10:23 (twenty years ago)

Oh, all sorts. Taking chairs without asking if they were free, jumping the invisible queue at the bard (the oldest-looking one was doing this on behalf of all of them), taking up all of a table designed for three times as many people...

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Monday, 24 April 2006 10:44 (twenty years ago)

Bar! Not Bard. My brain really is eleswhere today...

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Monday, 24 April 2006 10:53 (twenty years ago)

Say yes take the money and then walk off, after all WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO?

This works best if you walk straight into the nearest pub.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Monday, 24 April 2006 15:17 (twenty years ago)

x-post to the amusing id-ed stories

a couple of weeks ago despite looking my 22 years of age got id-ed in the lewes road sainsbury in brighton (so see their fair share of scrufy students so should be able to see one coming)

and i got id-ed for ginger beer, and made worse by the fact that the girl was one of people who need to check when they sell cause theiy aint 18 themselves

hilarity ensued amongst me and my friends

― secondhandnews (secondhandnews), Monday, 24 April 2006 15:48 (twenty years ago)

This works best if you walk straight into the nearest pub.

and you don't live nearby!!!!!!!

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 24 April 2006 15:56 (twenty years ago)

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