William K.
Yelp
Apparently they don't like vertical drivers licenses. They have no other way to verify licenses and will not work with you at all, if it's vertical they assume that it's 100% fake, and no they don't have a scanner either.
We had a group of 6 and we were waiting on 3 more so we decided to sit at the bar while we waited. We're all between the ages of 24-25, and we start to order drinks, we all obviously pull out or IDs, the 2nd person in our group hands his over and the bartender looks at it closely and then decides to hand it over to her manager, who is just sitting there with their hands crossed almost bird dogging her employee. She hands it's over and asks the manager if she would accept it, the manager looks at his ID for about 2-3 minutes straight looking at each and every detail and then says no I won't serve this one person because it's vertical and no other reason.
Then we were told that we weren't worth getting a fine and going to jail over, there's an influx of fakes and kids out in the summer trying to sneak alcohol. Okay, I can understand that, if you're aware of that being an issue, why wouldn't you have a scanner? Or if you're worried about it why wouldn't you have a Peabody police officer present since that's a known issue to you? Again these are just a couple suggestions I can think of, if there's an obvious problem going on then you should have something to counter offense it.
A drivers license is good for 5 years, you can get your first one when you're 16 and a half, and most people will renew their license before they turn 21, reason being that they want to enjoy a drink on their 21st birthday and not be stuck with a paper license which nobody in their right mind would accept. But anyways, most people will renew their license before they're 21, and that's what one of the people in our group did, to the best of my understanding his license will be valid anywhere he goes for 5 years on his birthday, so when he's either 25 or 26, I'm not entirely sure which of those years he falls under but at that point he will need to renew it and be given a horizontal drivers license.
But yeah this place genuinely made me so mad about denying our friend I wanted to leave a review, we had 2 different people look at it and say no. These 2 people will tell you they don't want to take a fine or go to jail for serving a minor, okay, and you shouldn't. But to tell us just because it's vertical license and he's had a few years to update it. In Massachusetts you can renew your license up to one year before it expires, but even trying to reason with these people and tell them how it works, and why he has a different license didn't work, and this place didn't seem worth fighting over, nor did it deserve our business so all 6 of us just left when it was obvious they don't accept reasoning.
We went to Dave & Buster's instead and our group was fully intact and 9 of us there, they were suspicious of his vertical license over there as well, but you know what? They had other means of verifying his license!! Crazy huh? And it was great, they took a few minutes, scanned it, did whatever the hell they needed to do, and accepted the validity of it. That's what any other establishment with a liquor license should do -- their proper due diligence. And guess what? Because they weren't stubborn or hard nosed like "In The Game" and actually had common sense and means to verify things, we spent probably about $600-$700 collectively. I'm actually extremely pleased that $0 went to "In The Game" they obviously don't want people's business, they don't deserve it, and none of us will ever return there again. The bar staff and manager was even staring us down from the window after our entire group walked out on them not spending a dime. Have fun in there!!