waterworld
I don’t buy it. I checked RCW Title 66 and the WAC regulations in Chapter 314. Nothing in the statute or the regulations suggests that the person who swipes the card is the buyer.
I don’t think the question here is whether it’s okay for a child to buy liquor when she’s in the store with her mom. The question is who is the purchaser in this transaction? I take it that it’s not the child’s debit card; it’s the mother’s. I am assuming that the card is connected to the mother’s bank account, and that the mother is over 21 and has ID and the mother’s name is on both the ID and the debit card. If so, then it’s the mother who is “purchasing” the liquor. The child does not become the “purchaser” by swiping the mother’s card.
Let’s say I go to the store with my friend and she fills her cart with a bunch of things she wants to buy. We get to the check stand and she pulls our her card, hands to me to swipe (I love to swipe!), and then enters her PIN. Surely those aren’t my groceries at the end of this transaction.
Even if this were a sting, I don’t think the checker would be found in violation. It would be different if the kid was a teenager and pulled out her own debit card and handed it to her mother to complete the transaction. In that case the kid is the buyer. And certainly the store can set more restrictive conditions in an abundance of caution. But I don’t think there’s any violation when a young kid swipes her mom’s card for her.