What could possibly go wrong? Doordash Begins Delivering Alcohol

Starting this week, Doordash will be delivering alcohol to anyone willing to pay and over the age of 21. Never in the history of booze has it been easier to get buzzed.

DoorDash is an on-demand restaurant delivery service. You pick the restaurant; anything from Melisse to Taco Bell, and their "Dashers" visit the restaurant and pick up your order. Trouble is, it's a misdemeanor offense in California, for an adult to sell or give liquor to a minor under 21 years of age.

This is an obviously brilliant idea. After all, allowing anyone with any kind of ID and a smartphone, to download an app and order booze delivered to their door by a non-professional, part time delivery person . . . I mean, what could possibly go wrong there?

In an e mail to delivery people, DoorDash instructs drivers to follow these new alcohol delivery procedures:

1. When a 21+ order is Assigned, this screen will pop up: Alcohol Delivery Notice

2. The Pickup checklist will appear like a regular order. Pick Up Screen

3. When you are ready to drop the order off, this screen will appear AFTER you run through your Drop Off check list. Ask the customer to view their ID and input their birthdate into your app. Also ask yourself:

Does the name of the person on the ID match the name on your Drop Off screen?

Does the picture on the ID look like the person in front of you?

Is the person receiving the alcohol NOT visibly intoxicated?

4. If the answer to all of these questions is yes, and you have successfully entered a valid birthdate, you will see the following confirmation message: Success!

If the answer to any of these questions is NO or the customer is NOT over 21, please tap the "Customer Is Under 21" button at the bottom of the screen.

Customer Under 21

Next, please contact support and let us know what happened. Support will direct you on next steps from that point.

"It seems like they're trying to shift all liability, civil or criminal, onto the driver," said one local driver. "That's messed up, but also typical."

Doordash is the Uber/Lyft of home delivery, after Sidecar got sold to Chrysler. DoorDash is an on-demand restaurant delivery service. It was founded in 2013 by Stanford students Evan Charles Moore, Andy Fang, Stanley Tang and Tony Xu.

A Y Combinator-backed company, DoorDash is one of several recently founded technology companies aiming to use logistics services to offer food delivery from restaurants on-demand. Its competitors include Tapingo, Postmates, GrubHub, Caviar (acquired by Square, Inc.), grocery delivery services like Instacart and other food startups. DoorDash launched in the South Bay of San Francisco in 2013 and has expanded to Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, and most of the San Francisco Bay Area in addition to several other markets

On November 6, 2015, In-N-Out Burger filed a lawsuit against DoorDash claiming trademark infringement and unfair competition. In n Out famously argued that they never authorized Doordash to put their logo on their app, not to deliver their burgers or other food items. They wanted to keep control over their own products. Doordash agreed to cease and desist from delivering In-N-Out products.

DoorDash was rumoured to be in fundraising talks at a valuation of at least $1 billion with Sequoia Capital in November 2015.