In a TikTok, a woman shows a machine checking for identification connected to gas station store refrigerators that hold alcohol.
TikToker Michelle Kimball (@michellebellexo), who identifies herself as a bartender and posts about the industry and alcohol, shared a video on Jan. 10 in which she shows a small, black machine that says “SCAN ID HERE” on it. Kimball explains that the machine takes a photo of the ID, and then allows access to one of the alcohol refrigerators if it is valid and the customer is of age. The refrigerators in Kimball’s video are numbered, so customers can choose which one they get access to after presenting their ID.
“I was trying to open this door and I could not open it,” Kimball says in her TikTok about the locked fridges in the gas station store. “I have never seen this before.”
On Tuesday, Kimball’s video had almost 4 million views.
@michellebellexo ID machine at a gas station to be able to open the door! Have y’all seen this before? #caniseeyourid#gasstation ♬ original sound – Michelle Charlotte Bartender
In the video’s comments section, Kimball clarified that she saw the machine at a QuikTrip, a convenience store sometimes connected to gas stations.
Other TikTokers have encountered the ID machine and locked fridges, as well. In December 2022, TikTokers Plavojai Jenkins (@p.r.papi) and Kii Kii (@kiikiithemodel) showed similar-looking machines in their videos, seemingly at QuikTrips as well.
In May 2022, the convenience store chain announced that it installed locked fridges at some of its locations to “reduce underage alcohol consumption.”
But some commenters on Kimball’s video said that the fridges were being used for other reasons, too.
“We started doing this because of how much money we lose from people stealing cases of beer,” @kayla_lipscomb, who identified themselves as working at QuikTrip, commented.
Others worried that the machine would collect their personal information, not recognize them because they don’t look like their ID picture, or just take too much time.
