When I was in high school, in philly, drinking age in NJ was 18 then 19. Then 21. lol. We used to drive over to Jersey to buy beer/booze. It was so much easier to get it there. Even back in the early 80s, if IDs were checked, and they were so fake, no big deal. Down the shore, we used to stand outside liquor stores, asking people to buy us beer.
There weren’t “keys” to collect in my neigborhood. No one had a car as we all walked everywhere, it being the city and all.
Drinking booze/beer was never an issue in our house. We had it with dinner, dago red wine, beer. Then when I was a teen, times sorta changed a bit and there were “issues” I was fortunate that the nanny state wasn’t prevalent back when I was a teen.
Today we’d be sued for this stuff. You’re right. We’d be rounded up like the worst criminals.