Parent aren't: Law says they can be liable for parties
By David McLaughlin / News Staff Writer
Sunday, June 6, 2004

Like teenagers everywhere, Chris Speck decided to throw a party one Friday night. When too many kids showed up with too much beer, Speck quickly found himself explaining things to police.

But what made the situation uncommon was that his mom, who was home during the party, wound up in her own legal trouble.

The Hopkinton woman will be ordered to appear in court because she gave the teens a place to get drunk, police say. The party was the second such incident in Hopkinton this year in which parents have faced criminal charges following a party at their home.

"It wasn't some shift in policy or a lighting bolt of, 'Oh, here's an idea,'" said Hopkinton Police Chief Tom Irvin about cracking down on parents who host teen parties. "This seemed like an appropriate statue to apply to a problem. It seems like another way to reduce instances of underage drinking, and that's the ultimate goal."

With graduation season in full swing and families throwing parties to celebrate, police around MetroWest are issuing a warning: Parents will no longer be prosecuted just for giving booze to minors. Simply being at home while teens drink there will also get them in trouble under new legislation passed a few years ago. It's a change in state law that police say they are putting to use.

"Having (the law) at our disposal now is a tool to discourage this kind of thing. Us and other departments are using that," said Holliston Police Lt. Keith Edison.

In early May, police charged a Holliston mother with letting teens drink at her home. She will be summoned to court next month.

"It's not something that will be tolerated," Edison said.

The enforcement may seem heavy-handed to some parents who argue their kids are going to drink anyway so they might as well give them a safe place to do it. It's an argument many parents make, police say. In fact, Karen Speck, the mother involved in the recent Hopkinton party, collected car keys from kids when they showed up to her house, according to police.

Speck, along with other parents who have been similarly charged, could not be reached for comment this week.

While state law does allow a parent to let their child drink at home, they cannot let other kids do the same. And besides facing criminal charges for hosting a party, parents can also be hit with stiff civil penalties.

State Rep. Frank Hynes, D-Marshfield, passed legislation in 2000 requiring party hosts to stop underage drinking in their presence. The bill followed the drunk driving death of a Marshfield teen who graduated from Thayer Academy, Hynes said. He had gone to a graduation party in Cohasset, where the parents of the home were present. He drove home late at night and died.

Hynes rejected the argument from some parents that allowing teens to drink at home in the presence of adults is a way to keep an eye on them.

"What message are we sending to young people -- we break some laws and obey others?" he asked.

In another Hopkinton case, the parents denied knowing anything about the underage drinking going on at their daughter's party. But David Yas, editor of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, said that argument is unlikely to stand up in court. And police involved in several of these cases around MetroWest say there is no way the parents could not have known there were minors drinking at their homes.

"I wouldn't want to be a parent in court and argue there was this bash going on at my house and I didn't know anything about it. You run the risk of sounding disingenuous," Yas said.

In criminal cases, parents who are found guilty under the social host law can be fined up to $2,000 and be imprisoned for up to a year. Of the handful of recent cases in MetroWest surveyed by the News, only one has gone to court. The others are still pending.

That case, from Hopkinton, was ruled on by a clerk magistrate, said Irvin, but the police chief declined to reveal the outcome of the hearing, citing criminal records laws. He added, however, that though he could not talk about the case, the parents were not necessarily found innocent.

Even if a parent can beat criminal penalties, they may face a civil lawsuit if there's an accident or even death resulting from alcohol consumed at their party. Yas warned that parents can be sued under theory of law called social host liability, even if a party is held at their home when they are not there. Civil cases, he said, are also easier to prove because the burden of proof is less than in criminal cases.

"Juries are more reluctant to throw someone in jail for sloppiness than they are to impose a money penalty for sloppiness," he said.

Like other MetroWest communities, Wayland is grappling with parents turning a blind eye to teen drinking. Police say they prosecute parents as a way of "sending a message to the community that we're serious," said Wayland's youth officer, Jim Forti.

Just last week, a mother and her 19-year-old son were charged with providing a place for minors to drink and keeping a disorderly house, he said.

But the town is taking another approach to the problem in addition to legal enforcement. Parents are being encouraged to sign a Safe Homes pledge in which they promise to supervise teen parties at their home; not to serve alcohol to minors or allow them to drink; and to welcome calls from other parents whose children have been invited to the home. More than 160 parents have signed the pledge.

Parent Donna Hale, who has two children in high school, said she did not hesitate to sign it.

"I have no intention of ever providing alcohol to a minor. I want other parents to know that, so they know that they know that they can have their children at my home and feel safe," she said.

Reaction to the Safe Homes pledge has been good, said Forti. But he said some parents have resisted signing because they think teen drinking is normal or that their kids need to learn how to drink before going to college.

That's an attitude Hale rejects.

"That just feeds into the whole idea that this is a rite of passage, and I don't think it has to be. Kids can have fun and socialize and alcohol doesn't have to be a part of it. And furthermore, it's against the law right now," she said.


 

Back to articles