re: Who can tell me about that one night in LA the drinking age was 18

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Now that I’m older than 21 I think that 21 is a good legal drinking age but it should probably be 25

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Hell, I'm 35 and still do major things I regret when I get carried away drinking.

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Correct. We used to run to Shreveport from Longview to hit Vertigo from 87-89. Greatest years ever.

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Even when the law changed it didn't really matter in South Louisiana.

Everyone knew stores where you could buy it or bars that would let you drink. You could still get in to most bars at 18.

The little convenience store by my dad's house would sell it to me at like 15 if I said it was for my dad

The loophole made it legal for the stores and business to sell to those between 18 and 21; but illegal for 18-21-year-olds to buy it.

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It was always 18 when I was 18, then they changed it to 21 right after I turned 21. But I've been drinking since I was 16, so it didn't really matter. Eta: And buying beer and cigarettes for my old man as early as 13,14yrs old.

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Same for me. Born in 52, so by 93/94, I was already in my 40's so a slight reprieve in drinking age limits really didn't effect me.

As for buying cigarettes, my dad would send me to the neighborhood "Mom & Pop" corner store right down the block to buy either cigarettes, or if money was tight, Bugle loose tobacco with the papers to roll his own. Cigarettes were $.35 a pack and Bugle was $.15 a pack at the time. He died when I was 8, and by then I'd been doing that for him for a few years. Can't imagine the looks you'd get if you sent a 6 yr. old to get cigarettes in today's society.

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The age changed from 18 to 21 on Aug 16 1995. I had just graduated HS and turned 18 on Aug 6..... in had 10 days to drink legally

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I turned 18 on August 10. Drank legally for a week and then it was gone. It was such bullshite at the time.

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August 15th, 1995

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Yes, 3 days after my 18th birthday. Mike's bar and grill was a fun time back then

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The law changed from 18 to 21 around October 1986.

I was legal for 3 months, then waited until summer 1989 to be legal again.

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No no. No

The law changed in the 90’s.

I was drinking and going into bars at 18 then when I was 20 the law changed. So for 2 years I was able buy alcohol, getting into bars then I had to put all that on hold for a year until I turned 21. Thank god for fake ID’s.

The original change in the law in 1988 pushed the age to 21 for stores or bars to sell to anyone under 21, but there were effectively two loopholes.

1) There was no penalty to purchase alcohol over 18 but younger than 21. The only penalty was to the store and bars who sold it.

2) The law allowed 18 year olds to drink in private homes, private clubs, or with their parents or legal guardian’s permission.

So this is what happened initially, at least in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans college bar scene. Bars started calling themselves private clubs and you had to pay a membership fee, usually something small like $1 or $5, to join. Then, with your membership, you got a complimentary drink for free.

Also, at tailgates, 18 year olds were drinking and anyone over the age of 21 could claim to be their legal guardian.

These “work arounds” didn’t last too long. The laws were modified, but I don’t remember when or how. I turned 21 in January of 1989 so I didn’t have to worry about it any more.

There were definitely changes made to the laws between 1988 and 1996, but I don’t remember the details.

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The loophole made it legal for the stores and business to sell to those between 18 and 21; but illegal for 18-21-year-olds to buy it.

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It was this. I turned 18 in 1988. I could legally get into bars and they could legally sell it to me, but it was illegal for ME to purchase alcohol.

Here's an old article about it and how the loophole was changed: NY Times article from 1996

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For years, she and other advocates worked to sew shut the loophole in a Louisiana law that protected bar owners from prosecution for selling alcohol to those between 18 and 20, even as it barred those teen-agers from buying alcohol. They won last year, or at least they thought so, when the Legislature banned the sale of alcohol to those under 21.

But then last week, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the state's drinking age of 21 is a form of age discrimination, and tossed out the 1995 law as well as the 1986 law that barred those under 21 from buying alcohol. Louisiana has become the only state in the nation with a drinking age of 18.

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Also, from Wikipedia:

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In Louisiana, the 1987 law raising the age from 18 to 21 was deliberately written solely to comply with the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 to avoid losing highway funding, while still allowing 18- to 20-year-olds to drink as before. Not only did it still allow 18- to 20-year-olds to consume in private, it contained a major loophole allowing bars and stores to sell alcohol to 18- to 20-year-olds without penalty (despite purchase being technically illegal) which meant that the de facto age was still 18.[38] In other words, the drinking age was 21 only on paper.

This loophole was closed in 1995, but in 1996 the Louisiana Supreme Court declared a drinking age of 21 unconstitutional.[38] That briefly lowered the de jure purchase age to 18, causing an uproar which prompted the Louisiana Supreme Court to reverse its decision, raising the age to 21 three months later.[39] Other exceptions still remain to this day, including drinking in a private residence,[40] and Louisiana still has some of the most liberal general alcohol laws of any state.

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