MovieChat Forums > Vision Quest (1985) Discussion > Drinking?

Drinking?

posted 12 years ago by jmsocool
2 replies | jump to latest

It's been a while since I've seen this movie, so I may be remembering it incorrectly, but I seem to remember a scene fairly early where Louden is in a bar talking to one of his teachers, who offers him some ribs, and Louden says something to the effect of how he spent the previous summer in that bar drinking beer and eating ribs. At the time of the movie he's a senior, so the summer he's referring to would have been just before his junior year. Is the legal drinking age in Washington 16-17, or was it in 1983-4?

"My girlfriend sucked 37 d*cks!"
"In a row?"

[–] gabby_bm 12 years ago

No. There was no LEGAL way for him to be there drinking beer. However, if he was there with a person over 21 he could have reasonably been drinking THEIR beer while eating ribs- as long as they didn't care or he wasn't caught doing it.

My #3 key is broken so I'm putting one here so I can cut & paste with it.

[–] deepc185 9 years ago

The drinking age was most likely 18 at the time. I believe '84 is when they started raising the drinking age, and in most states it increased by 1 year of age each year, so if you were 18 when it went up, you could still buy beer until you hit the legal age of 21.
Also, during this time, and especially in blue collar areas of the country, drinking beer was seen as an acceptable thing for older teenagers. People would just look the other way.
So if Loudin was 17 and close to turning 18,its very possible that as long as nobody complained and he wasn't causing trouble, he could have had a few beers in the bar. Keep in mind, this was a much less strict time. My mom could send me into the convenience store to buy her cigarettes and nobody cared. Heck, my grandfather used to take me to the bar with him when I was 5 or 6 and give me sips of his beer right there at the bar.