Effective: September 29, 2015
Latest Legislation: House Bill 64 - 131st General Assembly
(A) No permit holder, agent or employee of a permit holder, or any other person may be found guilty of a violation of any section of this chapter or any rule of the liquor control commission in which age is an element of the offense, if the liquor control commission or any court of record finds all of the following:
(1) That the person buying, at the time of so doing, exhibited to the permit holder, the agent or employee of the permit holder, or the other person a driver's or commercial driver's license, an identification card as defined in section 4301.61 of the Revised Code, a military identification card issued by the United States department of defense, or a United States or foreign passport, that displays a picture of the individual for whom the license, card, or passport was issued and shows that the person buying was then at least twenty-one years of age, if the person was buying beer as defined in section 4301.01 of the Revised Code or intoxicating liquor, or that the person was then at least eighteen years of age, if the person was buying any low-alcohol beverage;
(2) That the permit holder, the agent or employee of the permit holder, or the other person made a bona fide effort to ascertain the true age of the person buying by checking the identification presented, at the time of the purchase, to ascertain that the description on the identification compared with the appearance of the buyer and that the identification presented had not been altered in any way;
(3) That the permit holder, the agent or employee of the permit holder, or the other person had reason to believe that the person buying was of legal age.
(B) In any hearing before the liquor control commission and in any action or proceeding before a court of record in which a defense is raised under division (A) of this section, the registrar of motor vehicles or deputy registrar who issued an identification card under sections 4507.50 to 4507.52 of the Revised Code shall be permitted to submit certified copies of the records, in the registrar's or deputy's possession, of that issuance in lieu of the testimony of the personnel of or contractors with the bureau of motor vehicles at the hearing, action, or proceeding.
(C) The defense provided by division (A) of this section is in addition to the affirmative defense provided by section 4301.611 of the Revised Code.