For underage drinkers, sneaking into a Baltimore City bar just got a lot tougher.

A new law passed recently allows liquor board inspectors to check the identification of anyone trying to buy alcohol in any city liquor establishment.

And that’s a first.

“In the past, to get ID from suspected underage drinkers in bars and clubs, we were required to have the cooperation of police and the liquor establishment,” said Samuel Daniels, executive secretary of the Baltimore Board of Liquor License Commissioners. “And liquor-license holders weren’t about to say, ‘Come into my bar, and catch me serving minors.”

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The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Nathaniel McFadden, D-Baltimore City, sailed through the Senate on the last day of session last week.

“The bill will allow us to do our jobs, without being stopped by police or club owners who question our legal ability to get ID from underage patrons,” Daniels said.

Demaune Millard, director of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon’s Office of Government Relations said, “We want the liquor board to have every reasonable tool to help stop underage drinking. We’re pleased that liquor inspectors now have the power to check for minors.”

The law also will allow Board of Liquor License Commissioners to conduct nationwide, FBI-sponsored background checks on people applying for liquor licenses.

“[Until this bill,] a person, who could have been a child molester in any other state, could have a liquor license here, because we only do Maryland background checks,” Daniels said.

Although the law empowers the liquor board, another bill, that did not pass, would have made the Board of Liquor License Commissioners completely independent of any other judicial power.

“That bill would have allowed us to have our own task force — a team of under-21-year-olds, who would go into liquor establishments and try to get served,” Daniels said.

gsmith@baltimoreexaminer.com