You’d think a Philadelphia bar named Dirty Frank’s would have rock-bottom standards. It seems like the kind of place a 15-year-old suburban white kid could waltz into with a fake ID featuring the image of a 57-year-old Mexican man.
On the contrary! This long-running Center City Philadelphia bar has temporarily raised its minimum entry age from 21 to 25 after a flood of college-age patrons armed with increasingly convincing fake IDs descended upon the bar.
According to a report from NBC Philadelphia, bar co-owner Jody Sweitzer said the age shift made sense after the bar began attracting far more young people than usual. Like, significantly more often, arriving 20 or 30 at a time.
Philly Bar Tackles Fake ID Problem With New Age Limit
That’s suspicious enough. But what was even weirder was that they all looked pretty young despite their IDs raising no red flags. Maybe today’s 21-year-olds are well hydrated, thoroughly moisturized, and well rested? Unlikely.
The only thing that could explain it was that all these kids suddenly had fake IDs. But it didn’t make sense: scanners approved them, the holograms gleamed under UV light as they should have, and overall, everything looked technically correct. And yet, something felt… off.
Things really hit a comical new high when staff confiscated a Pennsylvania State ID belonging to a supposed 24-year-old whose picture was of Benjamin Franklin. And the address was listed as the Liberty Bell. Ridiculous.
Everybody knows Benjamin Franklin lived in a home he built in a courtyard off Market Street in Philly between 3rd and 4th Street. Obviously, some real ballsy horses—t to present a bartender, especially when the obviously fake ID somehow still scans as a valid.
It was starting to become a problem. And not just because bar owners were facing the very real possibility that they had been serving drinks to underage kids for who knows how long. The sudden presence of dozens and dozens of underage drinkers was throwing off the whole bar’s vibe. Suddenly, patrons were vaping, sneaking in their own alcohol so then have to pay for the bars, and just generally treating the bar like a rowdy frat house.
So, until some better ID checking technology is put in place, owner Jody Sweitzer bumped the age of entry up to 25, thus invalidating many of the obviously yet not so obviously fake IDs that have been flooding the place.
Regulars seem to love it, despite no longer being able to have a drink alongside one of America’s founding fathers.
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