Law places adults under the influence
Commentary by Shelby Brokaw
October 06, 2009
This summer, the Kansas legislature passed House Bill 2165, in
an attempt to crack down on social hosting. Kansas’s law already
prohibited adults from supplying minors with alcohol on their
property, but the bill expands the enforcement of this law to
include ‘recklessly’ permitting minors to consume alcohol on one’s
property. House Representative Joe Patton of District 54 sponsored
HB 2165. It was introduced to the House on Jan. 29, approved by the
governor on April 13, and took effect three months ago on July 1.
On face, the bill appears to be a fine policy, but the effectuality
of the bill should be brought into question.
What, you may ask yourself, is the importance of adding ‘or
recklessly’ to the terms describing illegal social hosting?
According to Patton and those who supported the bill, adding these
two words will assist law enforcement in cracking down on parents
who simply aren’t taking responsibility for their actions. Under
previous law, social hosting was only illegal if it was
intentional. By adding ‘or recklessly’ to the text, adults will not
have the simple cop out of claiming that they didn’t know minors
were drinking on their property. They will be held accountable
regardless.
The first issue that presents itself with this change in text is
the vague terminology used by the legislators. While recklessly has
been defined by the discourse surrounding the bill, it never was
defined in official terms. This leaves certain people who were not
involved in the nativity of the legislation wondering exactly what
classifies one as acting ‘recklessly’. Junior Riley Oblander
pointed out the predicament vague terminology can present.
“When you use general terms in laws and bills, they can be blown
out of proportion for a single person’s agenda and not used to the
full extent of what they were meant to be used for,” commented
Oblander.
Another fallacy of the law materializes in effect of such
terminology. It is clear that the intent of the bill was to make
parents more responsible, but it does so in a somewhat overreaching
manner. It holds parents and adults responsible for actions taken
by minors.
Deputy Desiree Wright of the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office, who
serves as the School Resource Officer of Silver Lake and Rossville
High Schools, supported the legislation from the start and even
submitted a written testimony during the making of it. She
explained that parents should have the responsibility to know if
minors are consuming intoxicating beverages on their own property,
whether that means going down to the basement and checking or
refraining from providing the alcohol themselves.
The problem this poses, however, is the effect the bill could have
on adults who are genuinely unaware of the illegal activity
occurring on their property. An amendment to the bill, presented by
Ron Hein of the Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association,
protects lodging establishments (i.e. hotels) from seeing the wrath
of the law, but does nothing to protect an owner who was away from
their property at the time of the crime or simply duped into
thinking the minors were participating in completely innocent
activity.
“The way the bill is written, it says that you need to be
responsible when it’s on your property. Just because it’s on your
property doesn’t mean that you have full knowledge and the law
doesn’t make exceptions right now,” Larry Winter, junior and senior
high school principle, explained, “I think it’s good that we’re
trying to become more responsible, but we will continue to have
issues.”
Apart from these issues with the bill itself is the simple fact
that underage drinking has always been impossible to restrict.
Statistics from Kansas Partnership, Inc. reported that $646 million
were spent in 2005 as a result of underage drinking. Costs resulted
from medical care, work loss, pain, suffering, property crime, and
a myriad of other negative impacts. While these realities seem
staggering, there is only so much that law enforcement can do to
stem the flux of minor consumption. Junior Jake Maryott stated this
as a simple truism.
“Underage drinking is inevitable. You are going to see less house
parties and more pasture parties,” stated Maryott.
Essentially the problem is this: the state legislature has only
dipped its toe into the sea of issues that lead to high levels of
underage drinking. They have good intentions, but law enforcement
can only do so much. If anything, this bill has at least presented
the simple fact that parents play a large role in the choices made
by minors, but it can’t be expected to solve the problem of
underage drinking. That’s a burden held by parents.
