Little Rock bar reports an uptick in fraudulent identification

Little Rock, Arkansas – For businesses in Central Arkansas, particularly Hillcrest Fountain in Little Rock, summer is typically a busy season.

The Fountain has observed a specific pattern this summer, which coincides with the anticipated increase in audience size during this time of year.

Kids who are underage are trying to enter the bar with phony identification.

“We have a person working at the front door to check the IDs and to make sure people aren’t coming in and out with drinks,” Fountain Assistant Manager Kolleen Elbert said. “It seems like, this year, there’s been an influx of it because they are more available… to get online.”

In the last two months, Elbert claimed that they have come across close to 50 false identifications.

“It has their actual picture, their name, their address on it,” Elbert said. “Some of them are out-of-state IDs. Some of them are even Arkansas IDs.”

If Hillcrest Fountain suspects someone is using a fraudulent ID, they have a procedure they follow.

“We ask for a second form of identification to prove that it’s them,” Elbert said. “If we’re uncomfortable with it, we just send them away.”

The owner of Hillcrest Fountain, Sarah Bryant, thinks that this trend could be harmful to local companies in Central Arkansas.

“If we got caught with three minors,” Bryant said. “We could lose our liquor license and shut us down, which affects everyone here plus me.”

Bryant stated that they are making every effort to prevent that from happening.

“We have flashlights to shine on it to try to tell the hologram,” Bryant said. “It’s difficult, but I think we’re doing a pretty good, as good a job as human beings can do.”

Even the barcode scanners at the door of some restaurants can be fooled by false IDs.

Other firms have also observed a rise in the usage of fraudulent identification.