Bar owners back higher drinking age but want mandatory ID checks

For some young drinkers, the dif­fer­ence be­tween hav­ing a drink legal­ly and il­le­gal­ly could soon come down to one thing: whether they can prove their age.

The Bar­keep­ers and Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (BOATT) sup­ports rais­ing the le­gal drink­ing age from 18 to 21, how­ev­er, it is warn­ing that with­out manda­to­ry iden­ti­fi­ca­tion in pub­lic, the pro­posed change could sim­ply push younger drinkers out of li­censed bars and in­to the streets and oth­er places where al­co­hol is sold il­le­gal­ly.

BOATT pres­i­dent Sateesh Moonasar said the as­so­ci­a­tion un­der­stands the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion be­hind the pro­posed change and ac­cepts that bars will lose some busi­ness.