Watching the doors at The Caterie, a local bar on Perkins Road, is Byron Barnett, a nursing junior who has been a bouncer there for three months.
Every night, Barnett sees hundreds of college-aged men and women coming to see featured bands or to have a drink with their friends.
As three people walk through the door, Barnett asks for their IDs and the $5 cover charge. Taking the ID, he checks to make sure it’s not fake by bending and flipping it around and, finally, he checks the birth date.
“You’re good,” he says to a woman accompanied by two older friends. “Have a nice night.”
Since 1995, when the drinking age in Louisiana was raised to the national standard of 21 years old, it has become more challenging for LSU students to pass for the legal drinking age.
Barnett’s job is to make sure that no one younger than the 18-year-old age requirement The Caterie sets for its patrons enters.
Barnett makes his living by approving who can and can not drink at The Caterie.
“You can tell just by the look of people,” he said. “Working in this kind of spot, you can tell by the way they dress and act. Older girls tend to dress more conservatively, people with fake IDs are more nervous, their hands shake and you can tell.”
Barnett said he gets paid a small fee by The Caterie’s owners for every fake ID he takes.
“It’s got to look pretty damn close to the real thing to get in,” he said. “It would cost a lot of money to get a good one.”
Having worked at another bar, The Brick House, Barnett knows the ropes of checking IDs.
“After a while you get used to seeing the real IDs,” Barnett said. “If they look 27 or younger, I have to see it.”
A standard state ID features name and address, height, weight, holograms and most importantly for some – age.
Nick, a 19-year-old pre-law sophomore has a fake ID from North Carolina, and uses it frequently in the Baton Rouge area.
The picture on the ID isn’t Nick, but it looks similar enough that many bars do not turn him down when he tries to pass for 21. Nick said his friend had three of the IDs made in Texas for $90.
“I’ve been turned down a few times,” Nick said. “When they ask who it is, I say it’s me with short hair. One time it got taken but one of my friends knew the bouncer so we got it back.”
Nick said he has tried the ID at many different places around town.
“Liquor stores and bars, all kinds of places,” Nick said. “Most of my friends have them, even the girls.”
Lauren, a business sophomore, had a fake ID for most of her freshman year, but it was taken during a Spring Break trip.
“It’s another person, a 21-year-old. I looked a lot like her,” Lauren said. “Sometimes the bouncer would know it wasn’t me – he would ask me for my real ID and I’d give it to him, no problem.”
Darin Adams, owner of Tigerland’s Reggie’s, said he takes about 20 IDs a week.
“We confiscate them and depending on what type of fake it is we either turn it over to the authorities or we get rid of them,” Adams said. “The biggest group of fake IDs are from Texas, there’s a real good Texas ID going around.”
A simple search for “fake ID” on the Internet brings up thousands of references including sites that promise fake IDs delivered quickly, easily and discreetly.
“All it takes is 90 bucks and a road trip,” Nick said. “You can have one that easy.”
Vocational education junior Phillip Brown, a cashier at the TigerLand market on Nicholson, said he sees anywhere from 25 to 35 fake IDs a night from Thursday to Saturday.
“I see them from Florida and Texas. Some say they are novelty items and I know right away, but you can pretty much tell whose got a real one or not,” Brown said. “At the beginning of the semester more students are coming back to school and they think if they have something to present they’ll get what they want. They’re generally wrong.”
Brown also said he has visits from Alcoholic Beverage Control authorities more than twice a night on peak nights, and they don’t hesitate to stop customers coming out of his store with alcohol and ask for their ID.
“If we make a mistake, it does come down on us,” Brown said. “But most of all it comes down on them.”
According to surveys released by the liquor industry, only 3 percent of children under 18 reported successful use of fake IDs to get alcohol, but 19 percent of those children’s parents blamed fake IDs for their access to alcohol.
Luke Jenkins, a mechanical engineering junior, said he doesn’t drink.
“I have friends that have IDs,” Jenkins said. “But I never needed one.”
Tommy, an international trade and finance sophomore, said he has a Florida ID a friend made for him.
“He took my picture and made it for me,” Tommy said. “If you know the right people it’s not hard to get one on the streets.”
Tommy said his main reason for having a fake ID is so he can drink alcohol at the bars he frequents.
“I don’t like being harassed by the people who work at the bar,” Tommy said. “I can buy my own alcohol and if they think I’m 21, they’ll leave me alone.”
Ricky Juneau, a biological sciences junior, said he didn’t need a fake ID because he is only four months away from his 21st birthday, and there has always been someone at the bar to buy him drinks.
Nick said he has a fake ID because his favorite bars won’t let him in at 19, and he doesn’t like his 21-year-old friends taking the risk of buying him alcohol.
“It’s a risk I take. I’d rather me get in trouble than them,” Nick said. “Personally, I think I can drink responsibly, but by law I guess it’s not right.”