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July 3, 2012 (San Diego) –In recent months, police and community groups have stepped up efforts to educate residents about an important law to prevent underage drinking – the Social Host law, often called the house party law.
The awareness push is needed, according to local health professionals. Social Host Laws have been in place throughout the San Diego County for close to a decade. Despite this, many residents are still unaware of the laws – and penalties they hold for those who host underage drinking parties.
Last year, in a poll of more than 1,800 county residents, 69 percent of adults said they were unaware of the laws. The survey was conducted last year by county-funded prevention groups hoping to gauge residents’ perception of crime- and drug-related problems they face.
For years, local groups have been trying to reduce the health and safety impacts of underage drinking.
“Outreach is key,” said Felipe Nuño, a South Bay resident and a community sector leader with the Alcohol Policy Panel of San Diego County. “People need to know they are being held legally responsible.”
Advocacy and Outreach
Since April, health professionals and police have participated in more than a dozen community forums focusing on the impacts of underage drinking and application of local Social Host Laws.
Sheriff’s deputies in particular have been very vocal about their readiness to enforce Social Host Laws. In the last three months, they have made at least six high-profile arrests for social host violations – two in Encinitas, two in San Marcos, one in Spring Valley and one in Santee that was marijuana related. (Santee’s law bars gatherings where alcohol and illegal drugs are consumed by minors.)
The laws in many cities allow for cost recovery -- billing party hosts for the cost incurred by police and other responders, according to local prevention groups. (A matrix of local Social Host Laws and their provisions can be downloaded at: http://pirlsandiego.net/flash/SH_matrix.pdf)
According to the 2011 the survey, 73 percent of adults (age 26 and above) support cost recovery efforts. Surprisingly, 56 percent of younger people (ages 18 to 25) also support them, according to the survey.
“People who know about the law, support the law,” said Nuño. “Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people out there hosting parties where kids drink -- and drink heavily.”
“We have to get through to those people,” he said.
Where Kids Drink
Health and safety experts say Social Host Laws are considered important because they address the environment in which high-risk drinking often occurs: House parties.
One in five U.S. teenagers has been to a party where a friend’s parent actually provided the alcohol, according to the American Medical Association.
Half of 15-year-olds in California who drink alcohol say they do so at their own home or at a friend’s house, according to the California Department of Alcohol Drug Programs. Health advocates around the nation say easy access to alcohol poses a threat to young people.
Research shows that many San Diego County students are taking their first drink before age 10.
In addition, alcohol is playing a recurring role in the deaths and injuries of young people across the county.
In 2010 more than 1,900 youth ages 12 to 20 were admitted to local emergency rooms with a diagnosis of alcohol abuse, according to a county emergency department database. From 2006 to 2011, 144 San Diego County minors, age 20 and younger, died with alcohol in their system – an average of 28 per year, according to the County Medical Examiner’s Office, an average of 28 per year.
“This issue is not just about drinking and driving; it’s assaults, stabbings, rapes – all the ramifications we don’t typically talk about,” Nuño said. “That’s a message people need to hear.”
Note: The 2011 Community Survey data were collected using a non‐random sample of 1,829 respondents living across the County of San Diego in spring 2011.
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