City attorney reviewing possible ordinance
Gilroy – It’s a familiar scenario: when the adults go away, the teens come and play. But some say adult-sponsored house parties pose an increasing problem, even when parents are home.
“Parents want them to drink at home, where they’re safe,” said Josie Aguirre, a 17-year-old who attends El Portal Charter School. “But sometimes the parents are upstairs. Sometimes they leave.”
Across the state, from Marin County to San Diego, new city ordinances take adults to task for permitting teen drinking. Known as social host ordinances, the codes allow police to cite adults when underage drinking occurs in their homes. Morgan Hill has considered beefing up its existing ordinance, and Gilroy officials tossed the idea around at last month’s council retreat.
“It compels adults to pay attention, to enforce some rules, and if they don’t, to pay for the cost of the police response,” said Dina Campeau, chairperson of the South County Collaborative, a supporter of the Morgan Hill ordinance. The code proposed in Morgan Hill would fine adults for the time spent by police taming teen parties. Serving drinks to your own kids, in your own home, would remain legal – but playing bartender to the 10th grade wouldn’t do.
City councilman Roland Velasco raised the issue at the suggestion of Francisco Dominguez, recently elected to Gilroy’s school board. Velasco said the ordinance could help police discourage underage drinking, and Chief Gregg Giusiana supports the idea.
Sgt. Kurt Svardal said parent-hosted keggers were uncommon. Usually, he said, teens throw parties when parents are out of town. By the time police show up, he said, the alcohol is hidden.
“We won’t observe any actual drinking,” he said, “and we can’t enforce something we didn’t see.”
In the past year, Aguirre said she’s been to four or five teen parties where drinking took place. None were broken up by police. Unless they’re noisy, she said, neighbors often don’t know.
Police can charge homeowners for their time if they’re called to a party twice for noise problems, said Svardal, but usually, a single call chills a party. Contributing to the delinquency of a minor is another potential charge, but it’s an unlikely one, said Dan Skiles, senior project manager at the Institute for Public Strategies.
“It’s a hard case to make,” said Skiles. “You have to prove that providing alcohol has been a pattern of behavior.”
The idea has been referred to a city attorney for review, said Velasco. Mayor Al Pinheiro said he doesn’t condone adults allowing teen drinking, but a social host ordinance raises new questions.
“Are we going to cite the people that own the house, or the adults that are there?” he asked. “Who gets penalized? I wouldn’t condone penalizing the owner of the building – it should be whoever’s renting the facility, and whoever’s present at the house.”
City councilman Craig Gartman said the city should think twice before jumping on the ordinance bandwagon.
“I’m always one to say, let’s put more emphasis on the current laws and see what those laws can do, prior to putting new legislation into place,” he said. “I’m against feel-good legislation, and I feel that might be what this is.”
Others argue that if teens can’t experiment at home, they’ll drink elsewhere, out of parents’ sight. Skiles calls such speculation “a bit naive.”
“Parents often aren’t equipped to provide supervision,” he said. “There are cases of sexual assault. There are fights. Parents think, ‘All we have to worry about is drunk driving. As long as we take the keys away, people can’t drive, and there will be no problem.’ ”
But, he said, “a bunch of things happen when you get a bunch of people together, put a keg of beer in the room and say, ‘Go at it.’ ”
Campeau agreed: DUIs aren’t the only alcohol-related danger. Alcohol stunts brain development, she said, and impacts decision-making.
In other Bay Area cities, research shows that teen alcohol consumption starts at home. Joan Kiley, director of the Alcohol Policy Network, said 38 percent of 349 Oakland youth surveyed drank at home, and 40 percent drank at friends’ homes. 25 percent of teens surveyed had an alcoholic drink in the last 30 days.
Data on how and where teens drink in Gilroy is scarce, say city officials, but a grassroots campaign is getting wise to the problem. The Cesar E. Chavez Youth Leadership Program, organized by Timoteo Vasquez, has conducted 600 one-on-one interviews with teenagers, and plans to conduct 400 more. The group is also holding house meetings, where community members discuss substance prevention issues.
“There need to be more programs and services for young people in Gilroy,” said Vasquez. “In the past 10 years, the population has doubled, and the services have decreased … If there’s no programs for young people to improve academically and socially, then their self-esteem is affected, and they begin to use alternatives. And for many of them the alternatives are alcohol and drugs.”
Focus groups conducted among Gilroy youth by the Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership this May revealed that teens drink and use drugs as frequently as they play sports, and more often than they work, shop, or watch TV.
Bobbie Silveira, whose 14-year-old daughter attends Gilroy High School, says kids are going to drink, but that’s no reason for parents to give in.
“When parents host parties, maybe it’s safer for their kids,” said Silveira, “but not the kids that have to go home.”
