Facing pressure from the Northwestern student body, owners of Evanston 1st Liquor (1019 Davis) announced Thursday the recent adoption of a new ID policy: “Close enough.”
The policy, which formally went into effect April 1, has been loosely practiced for years. It permits EV1 employees to sell alcohol to customers with an of-age ID such as a passport, drivers license, or non government issued state id card with an “authentic” hologram.
EV1 owner Peter Menlo said the change is attributed to a recent event in which a customer took offense at an employee’s questioning of the ID presented. The employee determined the customer’s hair color was a dark auburn brown shade, as opposed to the neutral copper red color shown in the photograph, and that the gender on the id was female, as opposed to the apparent male gender of the customer.
The customer, a supposed Sarah Rosenberg (according to her ID) threatened to sue for gender discrimination unless EV1 honored her ID.
When contacted, Rosenberg (Weinberg ’09), told the Methodist that she graduated last year and now lives in California. Harvey Rosenberg (SESP ’12) was unavailable for comment.
Menlo said that EV1 employees are strictly trained to match customers with their ID photographs on the basis of their skin tone, height, and hair color, which is why the employee refused Rosenberg service. Now, because of possible liabilities and discrimination lawsuits, he has been forced by his insurance company to change policies.
Since the incident involving the student, Menlo and co-owner Shane Torro decided that the former identification policy was too rigid.
“From now on, the customer is always right,” Menlo said.
Evanston residents had fixed feelings about the new policy. Deborah Millingsworth, a homemaker who lives on Sherman, said she was worried “political correctness was beginning to endanger children by providing them easy access to alcohol.” However, Bobby Parks, a panhandler who frequents EV1, said he would continue to shop at the liquor store even with the new policy, because he loves Jim Bean.
“Policy? What policy?” he slurred.
Evanston Chief of Police Marty Song said instances such as these have provoked the department to shift their primary focus from combating underage drinking to fighting hate crimes.
“We try to stay one step ahead of things,” he said.
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