Ontario Retailers Push for Driver's License Modification

The change would make it easier to identify minors who attempt to purchase age-restricted products.

August 31, 2012

OTTAWA, Ontario - The Ontario Convenience Stores Association (OCSA) is pushing Ontario to change driver??s licenses to make minor??s IDs more visible, the Ottawa Sun reports. The OCSA is joined by a group of province health units in the campaign.

"Our biggest problem is trying to make sure that we keep age-restricted products like lottery tickets and tobacco out of the hands of kids," said Chris Wilcox, vice president of Quickie Convenience Stores. "The challenge was to have our clerks, when they look at a person??s ID quickly, to determine what their age is and make sure that they??re of legal age to buy the product."

Wilcox said convenience stores used to quickly read a driver??s license by swiping its magnetic strip, but new licenses omit that strip. Another problem is the small type size of the birth date. He proposed something simple, like a red stripe next to the photo, plus the date that person reaches the age of majority.

"Having both of those pieces on there, a red stripe and the date that person reaches the age of majority, would...eliminate virtually 99% of the honest errors that we encounter now in our stores," he said. "The sooner we get this extra tool in our tool kit, the sooner that we??ll continue to improve our statistics of selling age-related restricted products responsibly."

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