Dirty Franks bans 24-year-olds and under after a deluge of high-tech fake IDs

A fake ID featuring a photo of Ben Franklin was the last straw.

“It legitimately scanned,” said Jody Sweitzer, owner of the iconic Philly dive Dirty Franks.

Elaborate fake IDs and the influx of underage people using them to crowd into the Center City bar has led Sweitzer to impose a new rule: To enter, customers must be at least 25.

The new policy went into effect about two weeks ago.

Sweitzer said the age minimum is temporary. “Until we can actually acquire a system that’s capable of determining what’s a fake ID,” she said. “[After that,] we’ll go back to 21 and over.”

For years, Dirty Franks has routinely scanned patrons’ drivers licenses and ID cards at the front door, but Sweitzer cited a rise of falsified documentation — as well as customers vaping and even a few who brought in their own booze — as giving her cause for concern that her business could be thrown into jeopardy.

“I want to stay open,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

In online forums and in conversation, older Dirty Franks patrons had recently reported that, on weekends especially, the bar at 13th and Pine Streets was so packed with young patrons that the college-age crowd pushed out a lot of regulars.

Sweitzer said she and the bar’s staff noticed the uptick in younger patrons with scannable IDs with official holograms after the pandemic. Often, she said, those customers would post photos and TikToks of themselves at the bar at 347 S. 13th St. — leading to Franks’ rising popularity among the younger set. (Historically, the bar has attracted plenty of postgrads, creative types, and a deep bench of mixed-age regulars.)

“We’ve always been a dive bar,” Sweitzer said. “Anyone who calls us a college bar is vastly misguided.”

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She said that the surge in volume resulted in an overall sales bump at first, but that it leveled off shortly thereafter. “It was quantity over quality,” she said. “So [revenue] stayed the same. You just had to work harder.”

Late last year, Sweitzer contacted the Tavern Association in Harrisburg and asked if she could change the age limit, something she had heard another Philly bar had done in the past. She learned that she was OK to make house rules.

Then the ID featuring a 24-year-old Ben Franklin came along. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Sweitzer said, adding that she’s spoken with scanner manufacturers but hasn’t yet found a higher-tech alternative.

“If you can find a scanner that can’t be fooled,” Sweitzer said, “I will buy it.”

Those affected by the age policy are less than thrilled. Nate Weinberg, 22, and a recent Temple graduate who has enjoyed visiting Franks, found the policy change “kind of peculiar.”

“I know a lot of people are not happy,” he said. “I never witnessed any issues the times that I had been there.”

The new age limit, however, seems to have gone over well with Franks regulars, who say they now enjoy a roomier bar and are excited to have a place to sit again.

Lance Saunders, a longtime patron, said he is in favor of the change.

“Hell yeah,” said Saunders, 41, “I am a Dirty Franks faithful and I appreciate whatever Jody and her team has to do to make the staff and valued regulars feel welcome in their own damn bar.”