White Plains, NY - Looking to curb underage drinking and bolster the effort to protect the health and safety of minors, the County Board has approved a “Social Host Law” aimed at penalizing adults who create the opportunities for minors to drink alcohol.

Under the terms of the approved law, an adult who knowingly allows a party, gathering, or event where minors are present and drinking alcohol or, upon becoming aware that minors are drinking on his or her premises, fails to take corrective action to stop the illegal activity will be punished by fines, ranging from $250 for a first offense to a fine of $1,000 and/or imprisonment for up to one year for a third offense.

“The bottom line is that alcohol and minors don’t mix.  This law protects minors from adults who are complicit in encouraging underage drinking,” said County Legislator Bill Burton (D-IN, Ossining), Chair of the Legislation Committee which developed the legislation.  Burton credited County Legislators Vito Pinto (D,IN,WF-Eastchester) and James Maisano (R-IN-C-WF, New Rochelle) for co-sponsoring the measure.  The Westchester law is similar to those passed in Nassau and Suffolk Counties that penalize adults for serving minors alcohol.

Burton said that adults who serve alcohol to minors or who fail to take corrective action when they determine minors are drinking alcohol at their homes are ignoring the well-known dangers that time and again result from these kinds of gatherings. “We’ve seen too many sad cases which could have been avoided if an adult had stepped in and done the right thing,” said Burton.

Burton said underage drinking parties often lead to any number of dangerous situations, from alcohol poisoning and possibly death, to fights, injuries, drunk driving, violent crimes including sexual offenses, neighborhood vandalism and excessive noise disturbances.

The Social Host Law does not apply to a few situations --- where a parent or guardian has given his minor child alcohol; where alcohol use is part of an approved education program; and, where alcohol is consumed by a minor for religious purposes.

Comments (2)

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written by Robert Palmer, September 14, 2008

I hope as this law goes into effect that each child that does drink in the woods because they can't at a responsible adults house doesn't drink and drive and ends up with a phone call to home.
Why do we give these supposed minors guns to go to war with, and call them responsible adults if they commit a crime but turn around and say that they can't drink a beer. It doesn't make a whole lot of senses does it.

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written by doug browne, November 20, 2008

Parents who allow liquor to be drank while hosting a party get the same fine as a person who idles their car ...250 dollars. Parents get three chances to allow children to drink at their homes and then I guess they pray these children get home safely. We are talking about kids who are young as 13. The sad thing is that there are plenty of "responsible" adults who have no problem letting these young children drink in their homes. It is so much warm than the woods.

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