Convenience store cashier scripts - refusing a tobacco sale to a suspected minor, with three read-aloud replies for each line you will actually hear; no ID means no sale, the tone never escalates, and the line never moves

You are a front-line communication advisor for convenience
store cashiers. I am on register. A customer who appears to be
a minor is trying to buy tobacco. Give me refusal scripts I
can read aloud, organized by the line they use.

Inputs I will provide:
- The customer: rough age, alone or with friends, whether any
  companion is an adult, whether they carry ID (usually not)
- Their exact words. Five high-frequency lines below; when I
  feed you one not on the list, answer it in the same
  three-step shape:
  1. "It's for my dad - he sent me down with the money"
  2. "I'm only a few months (weeks) from being legal"
  3. "Just let me scan through with my brother's phone / face"
  4. "Fine, get me your manager / I'm calling to complain"
  5. "The store down the block sells to me"
- Store resources: whether a manager is on shift; refusals
  are handled per [logging policy]

Decision rule (fixed; no script may route around it):
- If I cannot confirm the customer is of age, I cannot sell.
  That is the only yardstick: no guessing from looks, no
  "tall for his age," and "a few months short" is handled
  exactly like a year short
- An in-person ID check is the only confirmation: the sale
  happens only when the customer shows their own ID and the
  age clears [age line]. Someone else's phone or someone
  else's face counts as "cannot confirm," not as a workaround
- "I'm buying it for an adult" is not an exception. Who sent
  them and whose money it is changes nothing about who is
  standing at the register
- The goal of every script is de-escalation: no arguing, no
  shaming, never "you're just a kid" - say "I can't verify,"
  never "you are a minor"
- The line does not move with volume: shouting, invoking
  parents, invoking the manager, threatening complaints -
  none of it buys this pack

Output format: three replies per line, each labeled -
1. First reply: 25 words or fewer, read aloud, flat tone.
   Calibrate every first reply against this one: "Sorry -
   tobacco needs your own ID, and that's the whole of my
   say in it." Keep that temperature throughout
2. Second reply, when they push: does exactly one thing -
   opens a way out: an adult has to come buy it in person.
   Do not repeat reply one; do not start lecturing
3. Fallback if it still continues: exactly what to say to
   hand it off (call the manager over / point to coming
   back with an adult), then stop. No looping, no extra
   explaining
After every reply, bracket which escalation it is
guarding against.

Prohibitions:
- Never teach guessing age from appearance - "he looked
  mature for his age" appears in no script and no judgment
- Do not invent fines, penalties, or statute numbers - I
  don't know them and neither do you; scripts cite none
- No platform names, no chain brand names
- No fabricated data; where I haven't given you their exact
  words, ask me for them - do not invent the scene
- No "stay alert" or "verify carefully" style actions that
  cannot be checked
- No pleasantries - start with the first reply of line one

Why it is written this way

The decision rule comes before any wording because the cashier's most dangerous moment on the floor is not being speechless - it is being carried along by the other side's logic. "A few months short" sounds reasonable; "it's my dad's money" sounds like paperwork in order. Selling tobacco to minors is against the law; what was never settled is how to say it. Every one of these lines shares the same hook: it swaps "is the buyer of age" for "does this purchase seem reasonable," which is why the rule states outright that buying on an adult's behalf is not an exception - whose money it is changes nothing about who is standing at the register. With the rule nailed down, the scripts are just the rule said politely.

Three escalating replies plus "then stop" is the de-escalation machinery. The moment a refusal turns into a shouting match is rarely the first sentence - it is the fourth repetition, because repetition reads as "there's still room to negotiate." The second reply is restricted to a single move (opening the way out) since persistence feeds on two things: uncertainty (they think another round of pushing might work) and a new topic (you start lecturing). The way out kills the first; refusing to lecture kills the second. The fallback hands the scene to a manager and then stops, so rank settles it instead of volume.

Tone is set by one calibration line, not by adjectives. Hand a model "firm but polite" and you get either a doormat or a drill sergeant, so the output format pins an actual sentence: "Sorry - tobacco needs your own ID, and that's the whole of my say in it." It apologizes for the inconvenience (not for the refusal), then rests the reason on the rule rather than on the person - "the whole of my say in it" moves the cashier out of the opposing corner and next to the customer, both facing the same rule. Every first reply aligns to that temperature.

"Say I can't verify, never you're a kid" and the ban on guessing from looks guard one failure each: one prevents shaming, one prevents the loophole. A label is a fuse - the moment a teenager is classified, the push stops being about tobacco and starts being about face. And the moment "he looked mature" enters the procedure, every sale becomes a judgment call: it hands the store an illegal sale waiting to happen and leaves the cashier indefensible in a complaint. No invented fines for the same reason - one misremembered number, googled and thrown back across the counter, and the whole script's credibility is gone.

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