ORONO – The scrutiny of personal identification by local stores has left some University of Maine students feeling they are victims of discrimination.

“I went to this one store and I had my license, my student ID, my Social Security card and the guy said he had the right to refuse to sell [alcohol] to me,” said 37-year-old UMaine student and Rhode Island native Theodore Oliveira. “I went to three different spots and none of them would sell to me. Without a Maine ID, you can’t do jack around here.”

Many local stores have standing policies against selling tobacco or alcohol products to individuals with identification other than a Maine license or identification card. In fact, in the case of tobacco products, it is the prerogative of the stores to refuse to sell to anyone except those with Maine forms of identification, said John Archard of the state Attorney General’s Office.

Federal laws regulating the sale of tobacco and alcohol products to minors say individuals must present documentation to prove their age, said Maine Liquor Enforcement Officer Larry Sanborn. While that proof, by letter of the law, could simply be a birth certificate, laws also allow individual distributors to set their own guidelines for what is adequate identification, he added.

“The retailer is the one that could be losing business,” said Archard. “It’s their choice on how they want to handle the situation.”

The issue is not unique to the area around the University of Maine, but is present in many college towns and residential areas nationwide, said Mac Dow, security spokesman for Irving Corp.’s Mainway stores.

According to statistics provided by Maine’s Liquor Enforcement Agency, 90 percent to 95 percent of illegal sales of alcohol products in the state involve fraudulent out-of-state identifications.

Because of those types of statistics, Dow said, store managers are empowered to make the identification requirement decisions that are best for the store.

“We’re putting our employees in a tough situation. There’s a lot of good fake ID’s out there,” Dow said. “We want the business, but we have to be safe.”

Dow added that while out-of-state identification often is denied, an appeal to the store manager could create concessions in some cases.

Stores and employees found to be selling alcohol or tobacco to minors could face a number of penalties under Maine law. Employees face up to a $500 fine and generally are fired from their positions. Stores also receive a $1,000 fine for alcohol and $50 to $1,500 in fines for tobacco violations. Stores also could lose their license to sell alcohol or tobacco.

Even with the explanations from store representatives, many UMaine students still cannot understand the policies.

“I’m old enough to buy cigarettes in my state. I’m a United States citizen. I should be able to buy anywhere,” said 19-year-old Massachusetts native and UMaine student Anthony Tomasi. “Everywhere I’ve gone around here they turn me down, so I have to have my friends buy me cigarettes. If I really had a fake ID, don’t you think I would have one that at least made me 21 so I could buy alcohol, not 19?”

In the UMaine campus area, a Bangor Daily News survey of six local convenience stores found that only one would accept an out-of-state identification.

The reason, said 7-Eleven employee Ginny Pelkey, is the Liquor Enforcement Agency will punish a store more severely for accepting a false out-of-state ID than a false in-state ID.

The Maine Liquor Enforcement Agency’s motive behind encouraging stores to avoid out-of-state identification is because 90 percent to 95 percent of all fake identifications are non-Maine ID’s, said Maine Liquor Enforcement Director Lynn Cayford.

It would be just as easy for students to obtain a Maine ID card as it would be to protest the stores’ policies, Sanborn said. Identification cards cost $5 and can be purchased at the Department of Motor Vehicles when the person provides two forms of identification – one with a picture and the other with a signature.

Tomasi, among others, doesn’t see the need to spend $5 to add to the state’s coffers when he already possesses a valid ID from his own state.

Cayford noted that while getting a Maine ID may be an inconvenience to tourists stopping in the area for a weekend, the policies do more good than harm.

“We’re going to err on the side of caution to prevent the sale to minors,” said Cayford. “If these businesses want to scrutinize sales to minors in this way, I have nothing to say but to applaud them.”

The Liquor Enforcement Agency handled 51 cases of minors purchasing alcohol, 225 cases of possession of alcohol by minors, 111 cases of transportation of alcohol by minors, and 10 cases of consumption of alcohol by minors statewide in the last year. Those numbers show slight decreases from previous years, said Cayford. He added that those statistics do not reflect violations handled by local police, state police or sheriff’s departments.

R.H. Foster representative Jill Smith emphasized that stiff scrutiny only occurs with customers who look to be 35 years of age and younger for alcohol and 27 years of age and younger for tobacco products.

A spokesman for one convenience store in the University of Maine area that accepts out-of-state identifications couldn’t understand the positions of the other stores.

“Personally, I can’t understand it. We have a book we can go by to check the ID’s that tells you what they’re supposed to look like and a lot of them are too hard to copy correctly,” said Dysart’s Stillwater Travel Stop store supervisor Michelle Doucette. “It’s too bad [the other stores] don’t take those ID’s. There’s so many out-of-state students in the area and we have so many out-of-state tourists come through here and they really have nowhere to go but here if they want cigarettes or alcohol.”

Many of the store spokesmen commented that, while employees could easily recognize problems in a Maine identification card or license, they easily could make a mistake on other forms of ID, even with the aid of the book.

One Big Apple Food Store employee empathized with the students.

“When I got here two years ago, nobody would sell me anything with my Connecticut driver’s license,” said now 23-year-old Wesley Dawnis. “We don’t take out-of-state identification at all. It’s the people that make fake ID’s that make it like this. We’re just covering our own backs.”

The Stillwater Canal Co. bar on the UMaine campus, formerly known as The Bears Den, also refuses any identification that is not of Maine origin. Jim Carey, Dining Services manager for the university, said that the decision is the best one the university could make. “It’s really helpful for our employees to have one consistent method of identification checking,” he said. “Anybody can get a Maine ID. It may be an inconvenience to go get one, but it helps us.”

The act of choosing not to accept out-of-state licenses is not a violation of human rights, said Maine Human Rights Commission Executive Director Patricia Ryan.

“There’s no precedent for it. If they refused to sell to someone because they were from another country, it would be a violation, but I don’t know of anything preventing one state from selling to members of another state,” said Ryan.

Violations of human rights include discrimination based upon race, sex, religion, national origin, and disability. If someone were to contest the current policies used by stores throughout the nation, the best course of action would be to contact a local legislative member, Ryan said. “As of right now I don’t know of any law preventing them from doing what they’re doing.”

The University of Maine has 1,723 students from outside the state, with 369 of those students from foreign countries.

“A store has an obligation to be satisfied with the authenticity of an ID regardless of if they lose a customer in the process,” said Penobscot County Deputy District Attorney Mike Roberts.

“It is a pain and we understand how hard and annoying it can be for some people who may just be visiting,” said Pelkey. “We don’t do it to be jerks or anything. We want the sales. We’re just covering ourselves.”