I sat on the local liquor commission for a number of years. They heard new liquor license petitions and controlled buy violations and made recommends. (Yes, they used under aged teens to test the existing establishments for compliance. An underage teen would present an under aged drivers license for checking/refusal.)
We heard one incident that really bothered me and shows the problems. Detectives were in an unmarked car at a local convenience center. They noticed a van of kids approach another older teen entering a liquor store. They got the older kid (with a fake ID) to buy them a case of beer. The kids, 16 to 13 years old, were going to drink the beer while driving around. So imagine some night you're gonna meet a 16 year old in a 3,000 pound van who has just downed a 6 pack of beer for fun. All his inhibitions are released, and he's like to see how fast this van can go... Or maybe your wife & kids will meet him on their way home. You want to get shit faced, falling down drunk at home, I'd say go for it. But most parents won't tolerate that behavior a home, so the teens go out driving in the car. Regards, Bob S. On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 2:28 PM, Bob W <[email protected]> wrote: >> > in the open to be seen by children who could be scarred for life if >> > they see an open can of beer sitting on the ground. >> >> Here, it's the adults who are scarred from seeing teens (and >> younger) drunk enough to pass out, run in front of vehicles >> or commit various crimes. Police have the authority to >> confiscate alcohol for immediate destruction (usually poured >> down the nearest drain) from anyone found to be in posession >> when underage. Unfortunately cheap alcohol is so cheap here >> that it is not really a deterrent. > > There needs to be a bit more tolerance of under-age drinking - I think the > extreme intolerance we seem to have developed in recent years is at least > partly to blame for binge drinking. > > I first got drunk when I was about 13 or 14 and bought a litre and a half of > cheap cider which I drank in the park on a Saturday afternoon, to see what > it was like. It's a rite of passage. > > >From the age of 14 my school friends and I were drinking on Friday nights in > pubs in the market town where we lived. In one of the other rooms of the pub > some of the teachers also drank, knowing perfectly well that we were also in > there. In fact, my history teacher once bought us all a round. It had been > going on for generations and was well controlled. We couldn't afford more > than a couple of pints each so we couldn't really get drunk, but we didn't > feel any need to buy the cheapest, strongest booze we could just to go out > and get hammered. > > Introducing young people to adulthood is a gradual process. If you > deliberately exclude them then you're bound to get problems. > > Bob > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
