The Relationship of Perceived Age and Sales of Tobacco and Alcohol to Underage Customers

The ability of store clerks to estimate the age of their customers is critical in preventing illegal sales of tobacco and alcohol to underage individuals. To avoid illegal sales of tobacco products to minors, the Food and Drug Administration created a policy in 1997 requiring store clerks to request identification of anyone perceived to be under age 27. A similar age standard has not been implemented for alcohol. The purpose of this article is to assess whether age 27 is adequate for minimizing tobacco sales to those under age 18 and whether this age is also a useful standard for minimizing illegal alcohol sales to those under age 21. The analysis is based on age estimates from 49 gas station and convenience store clerks. Each clerk estimated ages of 45 people filmed on video whose actual ages ranged from 15 to 29. T-tests, analysis of variance, contingency tables and logistic regression were used to analyze the data. Store clerks found it more difficult to estimate ages of female customers than male customers. In addition, the store clerks significantly underestimated age of male customers under 18 and of female customers under 21. In contrast, the clerks significantly overestimated age of customers 21 years and older. Among underage customers, the store clerks' age, gender, work experience, education, and training in requesting identification had no influence on ability to judge age, nor did it have a strong influence on whether an underage customer was considered 18 or older or 21 or older. The results suggest that age 27 is adequate for minimizing illegal tobacco sales. Adoption of a similar or slightly older age may be appropriate for minimizing illegal alcohol sales.