Graduate Student Senate President Joel Newby announced last week that local law enforcement officials are considering asking Athens City Council to enact a “social host” ordinance. Basically, that would permit law enforcement to arrest a person of legal drinking age who “negligently” allows an underage person to have or consume alcohol at his or her home.
We encourage you to check out the full coverage in the front-page article in today’s paper and to remember that Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle said the concept is still in its infancy and that more discussion is needed before anything happens.
So, we thought we’d give our two cents:
For starters, the concept of a social host rule is designed, as it is in Dublin, Ohio, for a parent-youth relationship. Parents should certainly know what’s going on in their homes. But students should not be asked to police their peers, especially not their friends. Can you really expect people who are 21 or 22 to be responsible for people who are 19 or 20? In theory, maybe, but not in practice.
Example: What would happen if an underage person were so drunk he or she needed medical attention, but the host didn’t want to call for an ambulance out of fear police would come with the handcuffs after EMS left? Ohio University has a policy granting amnesty to students who call for help even if they might otherwise be in trouble. The policy reflects that life is worth more than a citation and that students aren’t always thinking in those terms. A social host ordinance would fly in the opposite direction.
Pyle says the motivation is not fest-related. Well, even if that’s true, there’s no doubt that a social host ordinance would be enforced during fest season. The city’s “nuisance party” ordinance already allows law enforcement to shut down a party if practically any law is broken. But a social host ordinance would allow police to arrest hosts if anyone on the lawn is underage and has a beer in hand.
We’re talking possibly a fine and jail time for the party-throwers because someone picked up a half-full Solo cup in the yard and got caught.
Don’t get us wrong; we aren’t condoning underage drinking. But underage people get arrested every fest weekend, which would indicate that the threat of arrest has proven to be insufficient to dissuade partygoers from attending. What evidence is there that escalating the consequences will change any outcome?
A social host ordinance would be an attempt to effect social change through legislation. This has failed before. You might recall the 18th Amendment, which mandated Prohibition (or, as we call it, The Great Mistake) and banned all alcohol. In the 13 years before the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition, there was plenty of bootlegging, speakeasies and — you guessed it — drinking. Making more laws isn’t an effective way to change the existing culture, it’s just an effective way to get more people in trouble.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
