The Leelanau County Sheriff’s Office is warning parents and businesses to be on the lookout for fake ID’s, a growing local problem.
The sheriff’s office said they have seen an increase in cases involving teens buying alcohol with high quality fake ID’s and they are warning businesses to be extra vigilant
A recent increase in fake ID’s, has local business thinking twice when checking for ID’s.
“They’re pretty diligent in making sure that we aren’t serving anybody that’s under 21,” said Heather Stieve, general manager for Streetside Grille.
The Leelanau County Sheriff’s Office is urging local businesses to be on the lookout.
Some have already noticed the problem and are taking the extra time to double check.
“It’s actually gotten pretty bad lately, some children or teenager adults will come in and you just have to second question it,” said Ashley Macmaster, cook and cashier for Shady Lane Market. “We will take one good look at them, observe, figure it out, we will also ask them certain questions that are on their ID, if they memorized it, other than that if it’s just straight suspicious, we can deny them service and we do.”
They know the signs to look for, just by their behavior.
“They get really fidgety, they know it’s fake so you can see it on their face and usually they try to hide it but they usually play with their hands like this sort of or they pull at something on their clothes,” said Brittany Kramer, a cashier at BP.
Businesses we spoke to have policies in place and train their staff to know what to look for and what to do if they spot a fake ID.
“If we have any question, if perhaps the picture really doesn’t look the person, we’ll ask the person what’s their date of birth, what’s your address on your ID because if it’s their ID, they should know what they have on said ID,” said Stieve. “It’s not harder, we just staff more so that people have the time to do what they need to do.”
According to the sheriff’s office, the most common states to look out for are Maine, New York and Illinois.
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