The Red and Black

poverty? crime? violence? problems in schools? none of these issues and many more just as, if not more important, can hold a candle to the tragic epidemic of 18 year olds drinking and bar owners serving them. i'm glad the athens government is finally realizing what a serious issue this is. I'm sure we can all be confident that these measures will make sure no minor ever consumes alcohol again. Thank god for that, too. This world will be such a better place once all of those kids are punished mercilessly for an attempt at having a good time.

How are they going to hold the bartender liable if the bouncer is the one checking ID's? This sounds like the police are trying to set kids up . I remember when the Athens police had a level medium of staying out of the kids way as along as they were not causing trouble. Now, they are stoping people for whatever reason to give out an MIP. There are so many more worse problems in Athens other than some ADPi freshman getting drunk because she got a bid and wants to celebrate without starting a bar fight or getting sick at the bar, but just having a few drinks and taking a cab home.

90% of the time, you won't be arrested if you don't draw attention to yourself. Those getting hauled in for underage drinking are the ones falling all over themselves, yelling at bouncers, or peeing on the side of buildings.

I think the more common sense that underclassmen display, the better off they'll be. That means drinking responsibly and not acting belligerent.

Then again if we all started doing that, the cops would find some other way to make us all into criminals.

Simple solution: it's not a complex issue and not a complex solution. If you are under the age of 18 don't send someone to jail by your attempting to buy or be served alcoholic beverages. If that person sells to you, he/she might very well end up in jail and you might very well go on and cause the same thing at another bar. It's time to put a stop to it - there is no way that there should be 300 people should be involved in licensing or serving alcohol in a city the size of Athens but I suppose that is not only bars but also restaurants. As for "setting up" the supposed victims, again, if IDs are properly checked servers won't be "set up" because they will clear themselves at the beginning. If the one seeking the alcohol has an improper ID that individual will win the trip to jail. Now for those of you who think it is so cool to get a false ID so that you can get into bars, let me remind you of the ongoing search for Justin Gaines who disappeared back in November. For those of you who don't know, he was a student @ Gainesville State College, Watkinsville. He went home one weekend, went out to a place called Wild Bill's and reportedly left his real ID at home, supposedly having with him 2 fake IDs. It has been reported that he has been going to that place for three years - someone surely knew his age because he was a local football hero. But his "cool" got him into trouble and now no one knows where he is. Think about him the next time you decide that it will be cool to fake your age and get yourself into a bar where anyone can be waiting until you've reached just the right point of your intoxication to move in and take you. It's no fun now for his family and friends and only God knows where he is at this minute. Don't think it can't happen to you - he's one of several to which it has happened in the past short time. And he's no wimp, unable to take care of a physical confrontation IF he's not disabled by alcohol or drugs. I use the present tense here in the hope that he is still alive somewhere. ..
So it's not just police versus student - it is a very serious situation. Justin might have turned 19 by now - so how many 18 year olds off to the big school are capable of handling themselves under similar circumstances? One night has cost him more than he ever thought about or wanted to pay, regardless of the outcome.

As an alumnae of the University of Georgia, I am so grateful that the University and the ACC Police Departments are addressing what is an epidemic problem in every college community I've ever been to.

I have spent the last six years of my career working in substance abuse prevention, specifically addressing the problem of underage drinking and its associated consequences. It is amazing to me the negligence that communities are perpetuating my arguing against effective and proactive enforcement of underage drinking laws? Why? Why do we need to give law enforcement he "OK" to enforce laws that are already in existence?

The operations that are being referred to are called Compliance Checks, and their purpose it just that--to check compliance with local and state laws regarding the sale of alcohol to those wanting it. It's not a sting and it's not a set up. When officers are properly trained, they know to use only underage (I recommend no one over the age of 19) undercover buyers who are using a REAL form of identification (i.e., their driver's license or state issued ID). Failure to have these things in place will make for a crummy case in court and no officer wants that, so get over the idea of being set up.

Approximately 1700 college-aged individuals die each year because of the use of alcohol. I would ask you to ponder whether or not those parents sent their child to college to die? I bet not. Also, the argument of whether or not they should be going after the murderers and rapists is a great question, and I would say they are. People who drink and drive are potentially murderers and how many young women are sexually assaulted on our college campuses each year because they're too drunk to know what's going on? Yeah...murderers and rapists on the list and I can tie underage drinking to it. Next? Underage drinking can be tied to just about every other public health problem youth are facing...STDs/STIs, unwanted pregnancy, abortion, school failure, homicide, suicide, assaults, vandalism, depression, trouble with the law, car crashes, oh...AND ADDICTION. Yes, it can happen to anyone and being a young, spry college student from a family that can afford to send you there does not make you immune.

I would also encourage the University and ACC police departments to realize that by becoming more proactive in your efforts through Compliance Checks at local bars and restaurants that students will find new (not really) ways of drinking alcohol. PLEASE don't forget to proactively patrol dorms and private locations (home, apartments, fields, woods, whatever) for parties where alcohol is being provided to underage drinkers. AND DON'T STOP WITH THE UNDERAGE DRINKER--get the supplier when you've happened upon an underage drinking party (also known as Source Investigation Programs).

Someone also posed the question about how you can charge a bartender with selling to a person underage when the bouncer is responsible for checking IDs. Simple...state law most likely says that the person who provides (sells, serves, gives) alcohol to the underage drinker is where the buck stops...and in most places that's the bartender.

It will benefit the Athens-Clarke County community to see this effort as positive and proactive. It can and will save lives. This level of enforcement and the use of Compliance Checks is being carried out across this country (your neighbors in SC just awarded themselves over $1 million last year to replicate a model of enforcement related to underage drinking--Alcohol Enforcement Teams of Lexington & Richland Counties--across the state). Give it time. See that it could actually increase the quality of life for students and those who actually live in what is the best college town on Earth.

Go Dawgs!

Shannon Weatherly
Class of 1996
Currently in Washington, DC

Change the drinking age to 19 and then we can be finished with all of this. Then when you are in college you can drink and learn to be a responsible drinker and then the police and find something else to do with themselves-like arrest the REAL crimnals instead of screwing up college students records and lives.

Lock 'em all up. Underagers, bartenders, door persons and BAR OWNERSHIP. Take them ALL TO JAIL. Only then will the plague of booze, urine and vomit and DEATHS start to reduce. LOCK 'EM ALL UP!

I find drunks and all the idiocy they do around our campus to be ridiculous, but I'm not sure this is a proper solution. Does anyone think it would be effective? I think cracking down on fake ID's and tougher enforcement of public drunkenness laws would be better.

i think there moms and dads should have let them out of the house when they were in high school, then they wouldnt act so dumb and stupid when they finally get out on there on. its ok to have a little fun, but act like you,ve been there.

I honestly don't see the point of all the arrests. The last thing we need our students graduating with is a criminal record. Moreover, you're now penalizing bartenders who are just trying to earn an honest buck. Most of them rely on the doorman to determine whether or not a patron is underage... will bartenders now have to card everyone they serve? How do they know a beer they give someone won't just go into the hands of a waiting under ager?

If someone is committing a DUI, I say arrest them. They're endagering the lives of innocent people out on the road ways. If someone is loud and boistrous out in the street, give them a citation and let them sleep it off in the drunk tank. If its just a 19 year old casually having a beer with a couple friends... there's no reason he should have to be taken down to the county jail. Write him a ticket, issue a fine, confiscate the ID, and throw him out of the bar... problem solved.

The fact is that bars don't want to stop selling to underage kids. They bring in a lot of money. If only 21+ went out to bars then I guarantee that downtown would not be as much fun and bars would have to close down. Empty buildings downtown don't look so good ACC.

There is only one way that a bar owner, bartender, or doorman can get arrested: an underage drinker on a sting operation manages to get into a bar and be served with a valid Georgia driver's license showing them to be underage. Any doorman doing their job would be able to spot a sting operation. Freshmen will still be able to drink with fake ID's and bartenders will continue to serve their underage friends because they can't be held responsible for it. So this policy really won't do much at all to curb underage drinking.

This policy is another in a series of laws enacted by the ACC directed against bars. They raised the working age to 21 and they required employees to be sober while working. Now they threaten them with arrest. I really wouldn't be surprised if a law shutting bars at 1:00 a.m. gets pushed through soon. The logic is that if you make life miserable for the bars, eventually they'll pack up and underage students will have a few less places to drink.

The only way this works to the benefit of curbing underage drinking is it stops you from selling alcohol to someone who is presenting a legitimate ID stating that they are under the age of 21. This law does nothing to stop the use of fake IDs which is the real problem. The sting the police are setting up will only target establishments who "knowingly" serve an underage customer who presented them with a legal ID stating they are in fact under 21. If you want all the drunk annoying kids out of the bars start using that same man power to save bar owners hassel and money and make the cops card at the door. I guarantee kids won't have the balls to try and pass their fakes off to the cops. And if that isn't feasible start enforcing the law as it reads post 9-11 and charge these wanna be alcoholics with felony falsifying government documents and providing false information for a government regulated activity. Bottom line go after the kids not the people getting tricked by them.

Why does anybody feel they can impede on the rights of an adult? This is a free country, and the majority of a voting demographic wants the freedom to consume alcohol. If you don't want to, then create a town or move to a town that is "dry".

Every Adult reserves the right to drink, because every adult holds the right to make legal decisions. I am sick and tired of the Christian majority imposing its morals upon the rest of us. Alcohol is not an evil.

If you believe it is evil, then don't do it. Please just stop interfering with my happiness.

Now, a quip what drunk driver's is bound to come up. Guess what? Those laws can stay in effect. Problem solved.

This looks like another scare campaign by a media-hungry prosecutor. Pathetic that he has to make a name for himself by going after bar owners who are serving legal adults. I'm 32, and you will never convince me that 21 does anything more than:

a) Drive drinking underground and making it more dangerous for those under 21 who do drink.

b) Delay the learning experience of how to handle alcohol from 18 to 21 for those who abstain until then.

Even college presidents and officials are beginning to call attention to this ruse from the neo-prohibitionists from MADD who forced this down our throats in the 1980s. Enough is enough - start going after the problem drunks instead of a college freshman nursing a lite beer in a bar. Sheesh.

as a former president of my high school's chapter of sadd, i can sympathize with madd's cause. however, lowering the drinking age can only do good in my opinion. in addition to all the talks parents have with their kids shortly before they send them off to college, they can have the drink responsibly talk. telling kids they can't drink until they're big and grown and 21 is like telling kids they can't have sex until they're married. the fact that they can't do it makes it all the more appealing, AND they're gonna do it anyway. we'd might as well do everything we can to start fostering healthy attitudes about drinking in moderation, and only then can we really say we're doing everything to keep people safe from drunken idiots.

oh, and i'm so glad to know that my tax dollars are going towards monitoring downtown idiots who get sloshed and act a fool. really, spot-on judgment, acc police. unless all these drunkards are also stealing, pillaging and plundering, please find a more effective use of time and effort.

Hey Chisholm, if 18-20 year olds are too young to drink, are you going to start charging them as juveniles when they steal stereos, posses weed, and get into fights?

No? How about making an alcohol possession citation a juvenile level charge? Oh what's that; they're charged as *adults* for an *underage* crime? I'm sorry, Chisholm, I'd love to hear more, but the crumbling of the legal system's legitimacy is a bit loud right now.