The Word - Vol 116

Busted!

Our oldest granddaughter celebrates her 19th birthday on Tuesday. That opens all kinds of doors for her. At the age of 19, she will be legally an adult in British Columbia. She’ll have the legal right to a number of things, like enter into a binding contract, get married (without parents’ permission), gamble, buy lottery tickets, buy cigarettes, and purchase and drink alcohol.

It wasn’t always that way. In my day, the legal age was 21, and for those who couldn’t wait to get into the pub on a Saturday night, the days of fake identification were born. Some friends of mine had access to an ID card that added the necessary years needed to get a seat at one of the many beer parlours in town. Establishments like The Fraser Arms Hotel in Marpole, or the Marble Arch, the Yale, or Abbotsford Hotels in downtown Vancouver.

Those were the days of the big hotel beer halls. Large brightly lit rooms with round tables that had tablecloths made of terry cloth that could soak up the occasional beer that would spill. There was nothing warm and cozy about these establishments. The room was made for drinking, so they would pack as many patrons in as they could and keep the beer flowing. Last call was always a lot of fun. Last call meant you ordered as many 25 cent glasses of beer as you could fit on the table! That was the wonderful 60’s.

Years later, one of our sons, (who won’t be named) unbeknownst to me, had identification that put him a few years older than he really was. As I discovered much later in his life, he and his buddies were quite the regular customers of a certain beer parlour in White Rock. They would finish off a weekend there, and over the years got quite friendly with the waiters, a first name basis kind of friendly. When his 19th birthday rolled around, that made legal drinking age, he showed up with the guys to celebrate. While the boys were whooping it up, one of the regular waiters came over and asked what the celebration was all about. One of the guys at the table pointed to our son and said, “It’s his 19th birthday!” The waiter’s jaw dropped and he said, “But he's been coming in here for years!”

Back to the 60’s. As mentioned, the drinking age was 21 in B.C. It was pretty tough for a teenage kid to pass for a 21-year-old in those days, so it was necessary to have a good piece of “doctored” identification if you were going to pull it off in a beer parlour, or even at the government dairy. (aka, the liquor store) Then in 1970, the Dave Barrett government of the day dropped the legal age to 19.

My favourite story from back in the 60’s involved two friends of mine. They’re both still alive, so I’ll have to change their names in this story to protect their guilt and protect me from getting sued! Haha.

We’ll call my friends Bill and Dave. It’s not their real names, but the story is true. See if you can follow this, because at the time the police couldn’t.

Here we go. Bill had a neighbour, Jim, who was 21 and would occasionally loan his ID to Bill. Bill knew him well enough to know his full name, address, and most importantly his date of birth. So now Bill was Jim, as far as the ID was concerned.

Dave knew Bill very well and knew Bill’s full name, address, and his birthday with the altered year of birth on his adjusted ID. So, Dave would now be Bill with the fake ID.

To set the scene now, Bill (who is now Jim) and Dave (who is now Bill) headed down to the Yale Hotel on Granville Street to have a few glasses of beer, confident that they were all straight with the new identities.

I should tell you that Bill, who is now Jim, was very hard of hearing. As bad luck would have it, the Vancouver Police came into the bar to make a routine check to make sure everyone was of age and all was kosher. They immediately spotted my two friends and walked over to their table and asked to see their ID.

The boys held their breath while the police looked over the ID cards. One of the cops said “Bill, when is your birthday? Silence. (Now remember Dave has Bill’s ID but he’s so nervous he’s forgotten!) The cop says it again, “Bill, when is your birthday?” Nothing. A third time, “Bill, when is your birthday?” At which point Dave pipes up, “You’ll have to speak up, Bill is hard of hearing!”

To which the cop says, “I thought you were Bill!”

Busted!!

Remember kids, Crime Doesn’t Pay!

Till next week…
Wayne

📺 WATCH: Molson Canadian ad circa 1965