San Luis Obispo’s new social host ordinance may cause some party planners to rethink who they’ll be including on their guest list starting next month.
Starting May 8, San Luis Obispo’s revised social host ordinance will hold party hosts legally and fiscally responsible for underage drinking at their home. This modified ordinance states that any host of a party where three or more minors are present , and at least one minor is drinking alcohol, will be charged with committing a misdemeanor and could face jail time along with a fine.
The first citation issued to a host includes a $350 fine, plus a “penalty assessment” and a number of additional fees that typically make the total fine considerably higher, San Luis Obispo Police Department Operations Captain Dan Blanke said. The second offense within a 12-month period raises the fine to $700 and the third offense hits $1,000. Under California state law, minors who possess alcohol are also guilty of the misdemeanor and can be arrested or cited.
The original ordinance, passed in 2001, enabled police to issue an infraction and a first-citation fine of $100 to people who hosted parties with five or more minors in attendance with at least three consuming alcohol. However, in the past eight years, only five infractions have been issued. According to Blanke, officers had a difficult time identifying five minors within a reasonable period of time.
“The new ordinance is expected to be much more enforceable from our perspective,” Blanke said. “The new requirement of identifying only three minors means it can be accomplished with fewer officers.”
When the ordinance was first approved, the Associated Students Inc. Board of Directors issued a statement in opposition to such a law, placing the responsibility of underage drinking on the minor.
ASI’s current Board of Directors has not yet released a formal statement regarding its position on the issue, but ASI president Angela Kramer said that everyone is “on board” with the new ordinance. She said she supports the recent regulations.
“I’m not in any way an abstinence advocate,” Kramer said. “In my opinion, the goal is not to stop underage drinking altogether; it’s to create a safe and responsible environment.”
The new ordinance aims to control the “free-for-all” parties around Cal Poly that sometimes result in people getting hurt, she added.
Frank Warren, prevention programs supervisor for San Luis Obispo County Drug and Alcohol Services, agreed that the main focus of the new ordinance is to crackdown on the larger parties where people are getting injured.
“The point is not to punish a group of roommates watching the Super Bowl, where one of them is 20 years old and holding a beer,” Warren said. “Parties where high-risk behaviors occur will be most affected, he said.
“The parties that the social host ordinance will actually affect are the ones where we’re actually seeing the most high-risk behaviors that sometimes end up with violence, fights, sexual assault, rape, memory loss and then unfortunately sometimes overdose and even death.”
Warren related the adult and minor’s responsibility to the responsibility of a bartender, saying that both bartenders and party hosts are held responsible for serving alcohol.
“(Bartenders) are trained to know when a person has had too much and is potentially dangerous,” Warren said. “A party host needs to be held to some accountability since they are providing the same drug — however, without training or regulation.”
Cities throughout California have adopted similar ordinances, some with harsher consequences. Violating Santa Barbara’s social host ordinance results in a $1,000 civil penalty for the first citation. A second offense totals a fine up to $2,000.
This looks like it will help to control irresponsible underage drinking a little bit.
The logic behind this new law makes sense. Party hosts are ultimately responsible for their party guests, yet if this is truly aimed at putting an end to the parties where “high-risk behavior”is going on, why can one intoxicated minor put a misdemeanor on someone else’s record? The parties where people are putting themselves in danger (i.e., drinking too much, performing drunken acrobatics, blacking out) certainly have more than one intoxicated minor present. It shouldn’t be that difficult to find at least three minors under the influence, and if three intoxicated minors can’t be located, perhaps the party was not as corrupt as expected. The new law has harsher penalties and will obviously make people think twice about having a wild party, but the new stipulations for social hosts to earn an embarrassing ding on their record (3 minors present, 1 intoxicated) is too small of a margin to make sense. One drunk freshmen shouldn’t put someone else in jail.
Santa Barbara does not have a social host ordinance. One version of a proposed social host ordinance made the first violation a fine of $1000, but it was not passed. Since then, the ordinance was revised to make the first violation a $250 fine, but that also did not pass. Students from UCSB went to city council to fight it this May and convinced the council to postpone it. Here is the story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30594858/
I think it’s interesting that an ordinance like this caused an outrage from students in UCSB, but here at Cal Poly no one seems to care.
This is complete bullshit.. If you have ever been to the neighborhoods around the campus (Hathway, Fredericks, California, Slack, Bond, Stafford) you would notice that it’s shark infested waters with the police already.. Honestly the only people that are going to suffer from this are the Cal Poly and Cuesta students despite the fact that we are the majority population of the town, and that we are the biggest source of revenue for the City of SLO. San Luis Obispo is not a rowdy city, these additional fines and penalties are bogus and completely unnecessary.
Ultimately what we are starting to see is the Police mandating the majority will of the people. We watch the former Poly Royal celebrations get shut down, followed by Mardi Gras, and now pretty soon there will be laws against any social gatherings altogether in San Luis Obispo.
close the blinds and keep the door shut. the po-po can come knockin but they can’t enter without a warrant or witnessing a crime
worse they can do is leave a noise violation ticket on the porch
http://ezinearticles.com/?Knock,-Knock!-Whos-There?-The-Police!&id=1307802
It’s fairly clear as to what the motivations behind this ordinance are. 1. To lower incidents of "problem" drinking, 2. Reduce Cal Poly and SLO’s growing reputation as a "party school", and 3. To generate additional revenue; and not necessarily in that order.
I see this very similarly to the amount of "DIPs" or "Drunk in Public" citations written downtown. Zero tolerance DUI policy correctly pushes people from their cars to walking the streets. Then DIPs are written at an impressive rate, to penalize those who choose to drink downtown and then walk home. It’s nothing more than a money making scam, churched up under the auspices of public health and safety.