Quincy Restaurant Turns Away Family Over 27-Year-Old's Mass. ID
QUINCY (CBS) - It's a day later, but Chris Melanson is still beside herself.
"I'm very angry, very angry and very embarrassed," she said. "And I just felt it wasn't right."
It's rare for this Weymouth mother and her son Danny to have a nice night out.
But on Thursday night, they and some other family members headed to Cathay Pacific's lounge in Quincy to cheer on the Bruins.
WBZ-TV's Jim Armstrong reports
They never even sat down. The restaurant wanted to see Danny's identification, but his only form is a Massachusetts ID card. His mom tried to intervene.
"I made a point to say he's 27 and he will not be drinking. And the man said, 'well, he needs an ID,'" Melanson explained.
That was that. Cathay Pacific has a very strict policy; it's a Massachusetts Driver's License or the door, no exceptions.
Lt. Peter Turowski is the liquor inspector for the Quincy Police Department. He says the restaurant just likes to play it safe by demanding one form of ID and by not allowing any exceptions.
"You can't pick and choose. It's either blanket or nothing," Turowski said. "You can't say, 'I'll take a Mass ID from you because I think you're with your parents; and it's okay, they'll keep an eye on you. And I'm not going to take yours because I don't like the way you look.' That's their house rule and it's perfectly fine by law."
The goal, of course, is to prevent underage drinking. State law offers legal protection to an establishment that serves a minor if that minor presented a credible, but ultimately fake, driver's license or a Massachusetts Liquor ID. No protection is offered if the minor offered a regular Massachusetts ID, like Danny's, as proof of age. That means you'd be hard pressed to find a bar or package store who will accept that as a valid form of identification.
Still, Chris Melanson feels like there should be a "happy medium" when it comes to interpreting the law.
"I did make the point of saying that he will not be drinking. That should have ended that conversation, I would think," she said. "It made me feel like we had done the wrong thing by requesting to sit together as a family and have a few laughs and watch the Bruins win."
The family ultimately went to another restaurant and watched the game.
Management at Cathay Pacific did not want to comment.
