Sam Special - ID'd in Washington State

We have both visited the USA many times for work and for pleasure and we are used to being ID'd when ordering a drink. We've both seen 80 year old men ID'd in bars before and accept that it's probably easier and fairer for staff and customers to just ID everyone. But this trip has been different. We went all the way from Florida, through the middles states, across the lower states, up the west coast and across Oregon without being ID'ed. We decided that the US had relaxed some of the rules about who to ID and must only choose those who look young, we both must look old!

We were surprised when we reached Washington and were asked for ID not once, but in several bars. We were even told in one bar that Washington was the Nanny State of the USA, surprising given it was the first one to legalise marijuana. We whipped out our UK driving licences and pointed out the date of birth line, explaining that the month and date are a different way around in the UK to the US (we do it correctly in the UK, day, month, year rather than month, day, year!).

We were amazed when for the first time of this trip and for the first time since we were both 17, we were refused entry into a bar. The Washington State rules are that only US IDs or a passport were valid proofs of age.

When I pointed out to the doormen who refused us entry that the UK Foreign Office recommend that the UK citizens travelling abroad leave valuables, such as passports, in a safe place (such as a hotel safe) and only carry a driving licence and a photocopy of your passport (which we had electronically) when out and about in a foreign country, he told us it was the actual passport or no entry.

Luckily, we only came across a few bars with doormen checking IDs and we quickly learnt to avoid these, the vast majority of bars in Seattle broke the rules and didn't even ask for ID. I'm so glad that there was this level of common sense although had there been a crackdown on bars checking IDs, we might have had a dry stay!

I really hope Washington was a blip and we don't find any other states with this weird out of date rule which puts tourists in danger if they have to carry passports around with them.

For anyone in Washington State who has any impact on these rules and would like to change them before we return, more information on the UK foreign policy can be found here.