For bars, restaurants and breweries in Anchorage, it will soon be mandatory to check IDs before selling alcohol to customers.
The Anchorage Assembly on Tuesday unanimously approved the new law, which goes into effect on March 1.
State law requires a person to be age 21 or older to buy or drink alcohol, making any sale to an underage person illegal — but the provision doesn’t outright require establishments to perform identification checks before selling alcohol. Anchorage’s municipal law has only required liquor stores to check IDs for every sale, according to a memorandum.
Assembly sponsors of the ordinance — members Karen Bronga, Anna Brawley and Zac Johnson — say the rule is meant to prevent people under the age of 21 from purchasing alcohol, and to curb alcohol sales to people with a “red stripe” driver’s license.
The red stripe means a person is under a court order to not buy alcohol, often due to alcohol-related offenses such as driving under the influence. Currently, there are about 2,210 such licenses issued to residents in Anchorage, according to the ordinance, which cites information from the Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles.
Bronga said that in 2011, the Assembly enacted a measure that requires liquor stores to check IDs, and had intended to later expand the rule to other types of establishments selling alcohol, including bars, restaurants and brewpubs.
“But we never came back to it. So here we are in 2024, and I think it’s high time that we expanded” this mandatory ID check, Bronga said.