Fake I.D.'s: Easy to Come By, Harder to Use

Caroline is one of those New York Women who seems to have been everywhere. She talks of going to Paris the way most people talk about crossing the street. When she turned 18 this past year, her aristocratic Swiss boyfriend took her on a junket through Africa for a change of scenery, and she plans to spend this summer in Sardinia.

But there is still at least one place Caroline hasn't been, a Boston bar.

A Harvard freshman, she's three years shy of legal and has realized that along with many of her classmates, she has going to have to buy her passport into the land of legality--a fake i.d.

One night in early September Caroline and a girlfriend went to the Picadilly Filly. When the bouncer asked the two women for positive I.D. they were aghast, Caroline recalls. "In New York no one ever asks for I.D.," she says, "No one cares."

Rather than join her not-so-high and very dry peers, Caroline decided to get a fake I.D. the following weekend when she went home for the Columbia game. Even in the Big Apple fake i.d.'s are hard to come by in these sobering times.

One popular store for born-too-late New Yorkers, Butterfly on Eighth Street, stopped selling fake i.d.'s after a Sixty Minutes expose led to their getting busted. Playland, in the heart of Times Square, doesn't make student i.d.'s anymore, and the bold black letters that read "Official Identification" on the cards that they now sell hardly look official. In addition, in order to legally sell fake i.d.'s, Playland has to stamp the cards "For Novelty Use Only."

But Caroline found a small shop next door to Playland that gave her a new identify. Born again, this time in 1964 and in Connecticut, Caroline figured she was in business, but has yet to test her purchase.

Depending on the mood of the bouncer, Caroline may or may not get into the Boston bar of her choice. Dave Centrella, a bartender and former bouncer at the Hong Kong, says two picture i.d.'s or a driver's license are necessary to go "bowling". "I used to use fake i.d.'s myself," he says, "so I know all the tricks."

How good is good enough?

However, a night's observation of door policy at the Kong or the Filly will tell you that a library card is often adequate proof of age. But because these bars businesses depend on the Harvard student trade, they sometimes don't look too closely.

For the underaged, Cambridge liquor stores are another, harsher story. The Varsity Liquor Store are accepts only passports or driver's licenses with picture as positive i.d. The manager of the store says he approves of the new law, adding, "If I had a younger sister who was 17, I wouldn't want her drinking and driving."

Although his words echo the reasoning behind the age hike, some sectors of the law take a rather laissez-faire attitude towards fake i.d.'s. According to William McCarthy of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission (ABCC), the arm of the state government that administers and revokes liquor licenses, "Historically the commission has not been taking any disciplinary action against the possessor of a [fake] i.d."

The only action ABCC agents might take is confiscating the offending card. The Cambridge police would do the same "unless it's a Massachusetts driver's license that's been faked," says Lt. Calvin Kantor.

Where to get the ideal i.d.

So, the trick lies in getting just the right i.d. Long-known as the place for fake i.d.'s, HSA International Student i.d.'s, don't have much clout in Cambridge anymore. Anne A. von Germeten '86, the HSA travel manager, says she discovered this while investigating charges of the i.d.'s misuse. "I called up a lot of the places in Cambridge and found out the i.d. doesn't even work," she says.

Even if it did, minors wouldn't have much chance of getting one. The agency promised Harvard two years that it would demand proof of age from all its patrons. Although HSA has been lax, no underage student will be drinking English ale, French champagne, Spanish sangaria and German bier on an international i.d. "Over the summer we had some problems with it because we didn't really know the policy," she says, "But ever since school started, we've been really strict about checking the birth date."

Big brothers are key

But Harvard students weren't born yesterday, though the law might treat them that way, and many under-age students gain two or three years with the flash of card.

Warren, a Holworthy resident, has an i.d. from a Montreal acupuncture school, which he got from a one-time student of the school. Warren installed his own mug shot in place of its former owner's and assumed the donor's name and 1962 birth date. Dr. Warren has managed to buy liquor from even the usually suspicious liquor store owners.

Wigglesworth resident Justin says, "Big brothers are key," showing his older brother's picture driver's license. And Rachel from Canaday has her older sister's Hampshire College i.d. "The picture doesn't really resemble me," she says, adding, "but it doesn't really resemble my sister either."

Other Avenues

Lena, a Hurlbur resident, discreetly whited-out the year of birth on her passport, replacing the seven in the date with a four. No one, Lena claims, has ever questioned the validity of her passport.

Some entrepreneurs are taking advantage of the fakes legitimate i.d.'s--driver's licenses, for example--by cutting them open with an exacto knife and tampering with the numbers.

Nicole refuses to disclose the technical details, saying only, "I'm an artist and I used to do it with oil paint."

"People still come to me and ask me to do it, but I tell them no," she continues, "My dad's a lawyer, and when he found out I did it, he was really mad. I mean, I could get arrested--it is a felony."

The names of some of the students quoted in this article have been changed.