We truly wish we could leave a positive review, but the server (and eventually then the manager) who was assigned to us last night for our party of 4 - myself, age FIFTY TWO, my partner, my daughter age 24 and her fiancé, out celebrating their engagement - decided to appoint himself the legal arbitrator of Massachusetts State Law and declare that our fully valid Ontario drivers licence’s were not sufficient ID. We were ordering a bottle of champagne for the occasion -certainly not our first taste of alcohol in the state, or in Provincetown - all other times we’ve purchased were at legal establishments where we presented these same drivers licences and were accepted without any issue.

When we protested that we have had zero issue at any other restaurant bar store or otherwise, he said at least twice that we must have been lucky to have found establishments that “don’t respect the law” - with the clear inference that we were the type of people that needed to visit illegal boozecans. The entire thing was so ridiculous that the table beside us, 3 lovely gentlemen probably the same age or older than myself, began to protest on our behalf and they finally also cancelled their drinks in solidarity.

When the manager came, we brought up the pictures of our other ID - passport, state issued health cards, etc - but she was not any more helpful. She said the restaurant can be liable if they get caught serving to minors or those with fake ID.

But here’s where Pepe’s staff and management are missing the intent of the law - they are only liable if (and truly this would have to have been some extreme circumstance) SOMEHOW if challenged by law enforcement, we could not prove that we were in fact who our drivers licences said we are and the age that we are. There aren’t any roving cops randomly approaching tables of 4 at the back deck of Pepe’s Wharf. Even if we went out on the street drunk off our faces - note: we arrived for 8pm dinner and they close at 9 or so, so getting drunk that fast would be nearly impossible - any cops who would ask us for ID on the street would gladly accept our drivers licences and photos of our passports to issue us a citation.

In other words, based upon several trips here over the years, always being served, establishments in Mass are operating on the balance of probabilities, accepting our ID because it’s quite apparent that we are obviously over the age of majority to purchase alcohol, and that the risk of legal liability by the restaurant is zero or near-zero. This is a discretionary call that restaurants are making probably a hundred times a day or week, and assuredly servers at Pepe’s have made this same call. Pepe’s decided that *we were not deserving of it.

But then again it did make a bit of sense, when we were told upon arriving that we’d need to wait 10 min so they could clear a table - only to watch them clear off the back corner table one of the least desirable ones, when the nice tables by the waters edge sat empty and uncleared from the previous diners..they just didn’t want to clear the nice spot for us.

Not to mention the fact that my daughters fiancé is US Navy personnel and had his credentials - to this the server “joked” that he’d be able to bring him a drink but no one else.

So that’s where after considering all the facts, and the way the other table protested on our behalf, we landed on discrimination. We believe these two - the server and the manager - just didn’t like that we were a mixed race group and decided to treat us with the most strict application of this law. We were definitely discriminated against, so we had no choice but to leave and find somewhere else to eat - at nearly 8:30pm

They should be ashamed of themselves, but as it turns out there was another fine restaurant that not only welcomed us in, they also didn’t challenge a 52 year old man when he ordered a bottle, and very graciously provided us a fine meal service on a $500+ bill. I guess our money was good enough for them.

Shame on you Pepe’s, you tried to ruin our little celebration but failed.