Allowing teens to party at home in Redondo Beach may become criminal

Adults who allow minors to drink alcohol on private property could soon be prosecuted with a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail, a $1,000 fine and reimbursement of the city’s legal expenses.

That’s according to the first reading of a proposed new ordinance passed unanimously by the Redondo Beach City Council Tuesday night. The municipal code, intended to reduce the rate of teenage alcohol abuse and address disruptive house parties, will receive at least one more hearing before becoming city law.

Similar laws passed by other cities including Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and all of Palos Verdes, known as social host ordinances, are less severe than Redondo’s proposed law. In those cities the fine is only administrative, while Redondo is choosing to go the criminal route. El Segundo will take up the matter next week.

Police Chief Keith Kauffman said the ordinance was designed to give discretion to law enforcement officers and prosecutors. He assured the city council the leeway would not be abused and violators would be prosecuted fairly. Most would be issued an infraction similar to a traffic ticket, he said.

“Social host is really letting our adults know that if you allow this in your home or in a private residence you are really running a risk of endangering our youth and endangering people in the community,” Kauffman said. “Currently, however, we don’t have the teeth to do that.”

Currently, law enforcement can prosecute an adult who knowingly allows minors to consume alcohol on private property on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. But those cases can be problematic.

The new social host ordinance would give law enforcement another tool, Kauffman said.

Some of the most recent phenomena, according to Kauffman, are 18-year-olds who rent AirBnB’s to host a huge parties. Others involve adults who allow groups of teenagers to drink alcohol at their homes.

“The typical house keg parties with high schools probably don’t happen to the frequency they did in previous generations, but when these things go out on Snapchat or whatever they can go from zero to 100s in a matter of an hour and we’ve seen a number of those,” Kauffman said.

The law does include exceptions such as allowing minors to drink alcohol when their parent or guardian is present, and there are exemptions for family and cultural events.

Captain Joe Hoffman said house parties in Redondo Beach are a disturbance to neighbors and endanger the general public.

“A large number of our resources at the police department are required to deal with large gatherings and parties where underage drinking is a part of it and this will address the adult liability when they are involved with allowing those events to take place,” Hoffman said.

The law would also encourage responsible parenting and send a strong message that allowing house parties by minors was not acceptable in Redondo Beach, Hoffman said.

“There already are an adequate number of laws that pertain to consumption of alcohol on public and commercial zones but not on private property,” Hoffman said. “Having an ordinance like this in the municipal code will bridge that gap.”

Resident Eugene Solomon questioned whether the proposed law was a smart move, characterizing it as “criminalizing having a teenager.”

“I’m not going to defend teenagers consuming alcohol. It’s the criminalization of having a teenager that I object to,” Solomon said. “I think you should really think hard about whether you want to criminalize having a teenager who made a mistake.”

Although unsupervised parties are covered under the proposed new ordinance, police officials said they would likely use discretion and not prosecute criminally those parents who had no knowledge of a party. An adult might still face civil penalties if someone at the party got hurt, even though the adult did not know about the party, Hoffman said.

Behavioral health experts who spoke at the council meeting Tuesday night all praised the city for taking up the matter, saying social host ordinances were one of the best tools to combat teen alcohol abuse.

“From all our studies, it’s clear one of the major sources of drugs and alcohol for young people are at house parties. We have been working a lot in the community to educate,” said Rhonda Jones a prevention coordinator with Behavioral Health Services. “If this ordinance is to pass we will continue to educate the community.”

Following the unanimous vote against teenage parties, the council voted to create a cannabis steering committee to consider commercial marijuana dispensaries in the city.