Parents liable when teens party at home

Experts: Don’t do it

Until she spoiled her own secret — igniting a late-night police search and a long list of court summonses — an unidentified 15-year-old girl’s partying might never have been discovered.

The Turner girl lied to her family telling them she was going to a nearby friend’s home. Instead, she went to Greene. She joined a small party of teens in a Route 202 home where the only grown-up was asleep.

And the teen began drinking.

The girl, whose name is not being released by authorities, sent pictures of the party to friends via the photo messaging app Snapchat. Family members discovered the images after midnight on April 6 and called 911.

“If not for all the computer jazz, we might never have known,” said Androscoggin County Sheriff Guy Desjardins.

Deputy Sgt. Tim Kachnovich found the girl. And she wasn’t alone. He discovered seven teenagers. All were drinking.

“One male was passed out on the couch,” Desjardins said, citing Kachnovich’s report.

The teens — three girls and four boys — ranged in age from 14 to 18. And there was no supervision. Homeowner Inga Roberts said she was upstairs sleeping the whole time, unaware that her children were drinking or had invited anyone into her house.

Roberts was charged with furnishing a place for minors to consume or possess alcohol. The teens were all summonsed for underage drinking.

“I did not knowingly allow this to happen,” Roberts said. “I would like to do anything I can in the future to prevent this from happening.”

Teen drinking and trouble

Parents’ role in — and liability for — their teens’ drinking is one issue within the much larger problem of teen drinking in Maine, which, authorities say, has become all too routine.

On April 10, a pair of Stratton teens, whom police say had been drinking, crashed a pickup near Carrabassett Valley’s Oh My Gosh Corner. The truck hit a utility poll and rolled, the Franklin County Sheriff’s office said.

Driver Robert Rivers, 19, and his passenger, Keegan Rolbiecki, 18, had been drinking at homes in Kingfield and New Portland when the accident occurred around 1 a.m., police say. Both young men were hurt but not severely.

“If somebody had been coming the other way, they could have killed somebody,” Franklin County Sheriff Scott Nichols Sr. said.

“We’re trying our best to crack down on (teen drinking and driving),” he said. “There’s a lot of it going on.”

Officials don’t know how much underage drinking is going on in Maine. Evidence suggests it’s pervasive.

In a survey of Maine students last year, more than a third of high school seniors said they had consumed alcohol in the past 30 days. Most said they would unlikely be caught by parents or police.

However, they are being caught. In most areas of Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties, federal and state grants are helping pay overtime for law enforcement groups to form special details aimed at catching underage drinkers. The details boost ongoing efforts to catch young drinkers every day.

In Androscoggin County, almost 2,000 juveniles have been arrested or summonsed for alcohol-related offenses since 2009, according to a database search by the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department.

The numbers — which include only those cases handled by the sheriff’s department and the Lewiston and Auburn police departments — average more than one incident per day.

Parents’ views on teen drinking

In most cases, teen drinking is secret. Sometimes, friends supply alcohol and a place to drink to younger, underage friends. And, too often, authorities say, the alcohol is coming from the teens’ own parents.

A just-completed survey of parents of teens in the Rumford area shows a surprising level of tolerance for underage drinking, particularly among boys and older teens.

In February, River Valley Healthy Communities commissioned the Tenants Harbor firm Scientific Marketing & Analysis to conduct a phone survey of 300 parents of teens.

Parents were asked about their children’s risk, whether they would allow other people’s children to drink in their homes and whether the legal system’s near-zero tolerance for teen drinking mattered. In some respects, responses showed a high level of parental concern.

Eighty-five percent of parents described drinking by their children as “extremely risky.” All but one of the 300 parents interviewed said they would not allow someone else’s teen to drink in their home; 29 percent listed the law as a primary reason they didn’t want their teen to drink.

Among the questions, parents were asked if they agreed with the statement, “My job isn’t to prevent them from drinking. Rather, it’s to teach them to drink responsibly.”

A small minority, 11.96 percent, agreed. Almost two-thirds, 63.79 percent, disagreed.

However, the numbers varied dramatically when the gender of the teen was considered.

Among parents of male teens, 20.7 percent agreed with the statement and 41.46 percent disagreed.

Among parents of female teens, 1.46 percent agreed and 90.5 percent disagreed.

The survey also showed that parents are much less worried about teen drinking after their teenager reaches the age of 17.

When asked to rate how risky their child’s behavior would be if they drank, 87 to 93 percent of parents labeled the behavior “extremely risky” until 16 years old. At 17, the number fell to 62.7 percent. At 18, it dropped even further, to 33 percent.

Too many parents fail to realize how their teens’ health can be permanently harmed by alcohol, said Carol Swicker, a Portland-based social worker who was hired to help oversee the Rumford-area survey and interpret its findings.

A variety of studies have found that drinking changes teens’ brain chemistry, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. In some cases, the changes are permanent and can dramatically increase the chances of addictive behavior in adulthood.

“It’s not really common knowledge in the community,” Swicker said. “I think there really is this attitude of, ‘Oh, I did it. The kids will be OK if they do it. It’s a rite of passage.’ But we didn’t really know the whole brain development piece before, and it can have long-lasting consequences.”

Talking about drinking

There would be more knowledge about drinking if people talked about it more, Swicker said. But for many families, it can be a private matter. With their kids, many parents want to be seen as friendly and cool. And among other parents, the topic is often avoided, lest someone is put on the spot for their values.

“It’s a taboo topic,” Swicker said. Her survey’s promise of anonymity was essential, she said.

“They don’t talk about it,” she said. “They won’t talk about it.”

The Sun Journal approached several parents involved in recent teen drinking cases. All but Inga Roberts — who is due to appear in court in June on her charge — declined to answer repeated phone calls. Roberts responded, but would say very little because of her pending case.

The reluctance to speak came as no surprise to Vicky Wiegman, a counselor at Lewiston High School for more than 25 years.

“Even among parents, there is a real code of silence unless you are either a parent who is very out with their willingness to host drinking parties or, on the end of the spectrum, to prohibit all alcohol.

“I think of parents who I have dealt with through my own family,” she said. “There’s not a whole lot of overt, ‘We need to be on the same page with respect to drugs and alcohol.’ It’s just a lot of assumption. ‘Our kids would never do that,’ or, ‘Hey, we did this as kids, and kids will be kids.’ There’s not a whole lot of open conversation on either side.”

Most parents have heard whispered stories of parents or other adults who make the decision to host a party for their teens and their friends.

To Wiegman, a mother of three, her nightmare would be to discover that her children went somewhere where the rules concerning alcohol were looser than the strict 21-and-over policy of her home.

“No one has a right to make a decision that could impact my kid in a harmful way,” she said.

Drinking law

To District Attorney Norman Croteau,  the issue of teen drinking is a matter of the law created to protect people.

“You want to keep people alive,” he said. Laws were written to prevent the tragedies that can follow a mix of youth, alcohol and cars. “That’s what generates all these statutes.”

Maine law bans people under 21 from drinking, and penalizes with fines and possible jail time anyone who furnishes alcohol to a young person or knowingly gives them a place to drink. If the drinking leads to serious injury, the crime can be raised from a misdemeanor to a felony.

“It can be a very stiff penalty,” Croteau said.

In June 2012, a teen party in Falmouth spiraled out of control after police were called by neighbors. When it ended, parents Barry and Paula Spencer faced seven counts each of allowing a minor to possess or consume liquor. The couple’s trial was held in Cumberland County Superior Court.

The case, which drew statewide headlines and an interview on ABC’s “20/20,” eventually ended in a mistrial. The couple avoided a second trial by cutting a deal that involved restitution, community service and writing a letter published in The Forecaster taking responsibility for their actions.

Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant, who has instructed police officers across Maine on liquor policy, said he has no sympathy for adults who supply alcohol to kids.

“Most of them think it’s all right to do,” he said. “They ask, ‘What’s the harm? They were supervised by adults. We took their keys.’”

The harm, said Croteau, is not only that it’s against the law, but events involving teens and alcohol often don’t go as planned. He believes parents who host teen drinking parties are kidding themselves.

“I’m sure there are some people who have done it, in a sense, well-meaningly,” Croteau said. “The problem with that is the ability to control that situation rarely exists.”

Maybe uninvited teens show up and cause problems, he said. Maybe kids get in cars, breaking an agreement to stay put.

Assistant District Attorney Andrew Robinson has also handled such cases.

“What often happens is that you hear defendants talk about it in terms of, ‘I’m trying to be a responsible parent. I knew they were going to have a party, so I wanted to make sure I provided a safe environment for them,’” Robinson said.

“And then you hear from the other parents who weren’t aware of this or who didn’t consent,” he said.

The law does allow a young person to drink in the presence of his or her parent or guardian. But no one else can give that consent to another teen, or stand in for another teen’s parent or guardian.

“The pressure from a prosecutor’s perspective comes from people who did not know their child was going to be participating,” Robinson said.

Good teens, sneaky teens

The situations are made more difficult by the secrecy of many teens.

“Every kid is capable of every great thing,” said Steven Galway, an assistant principal at Edward Little High School in Auburn. “Every kid is also capable of mischief.”

Parents who think they can control teens and prevent them from drinking can be fighting a bigger foe than they know, said Galway, who works hard to keep alcohol from finding its way into the school and events such as the prom.

“We’re always vigilant,” he said. “Vigilant. Vigilant. Vigilant.”

The teens’ sneakiness can be extraordinary, said Androscoggin Sheriff Desjardins, who owned a limousine company in Lewiston and often transported kids to their proms.

He categorically banned alcohol use by any minor, but they tried to get past him.

In one instance, he arrived at a local home and found about seven boys in tuxedos, complete with top hats and canes. Several parents smiled and took photos as the boys entered the long car one by one.

“As they’re getting in, the last one sloshed,” said Desjardins, who served the county then as its chief deputy. He discovered that the boy’s cane was hollow and told him to dump its contents. The boy complied.

 His six friends followed, leaving a puddle of vodka on the ground.

Surprised at her son’s sneakiness, one of the mothers cried. But when the booze was gone, the boys climbed back in and they rode away.

“I told them, ‘You can still have a good time,’” Desjardins said.

In another instance, he arrived at a southern Maine home to pick up some teens and found them drinking from a keg while their parents stood around.

“I didn’t want any part of that,” he said. “It was in my contract.” He refused to transport them.

To Wiegman, staying away from alcohol is the best, simplest answer.

“People may say I sound like a Pollyanna,” she said. “There is a legal age for lots of reasons. If you stick to that, you can’t go wrong.”

With teens, there are too many worries about what kind of behavior might arise when alcohol is introduced.

“You don’t have to worry about any of that because you’re not providing that match to the fire,” Wiegman said. “If we can all agree to enforce the law with teens, we’re doing our best by those teens.”

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From the Rumford-area 2014 Parents Survey

* Among parents of Rumford-area teenage boys, one in five agreed with the statement: “My job isn’t to prevent them from drinking. Rather, it’s to teach them to drink responsibly.”

* Almost 42 percent of parents of Rumford-area teens said they regularly talk with their children about the dangers of drinking alcohol.

* More than 85 percent of Rumford-area parents said they do not check in with other parents to monitor their kids’ behavior away from home.

* More than 83 percent of Rumford-area parents said they disagreed with the statement: “Most people who drink turn out OK. My teen will be OK if he/she tries it too.”

If you see underage drinking

Anonymous tip lines have been created in several areas, including Oxford, Franklin and Androscoggin counties, to allow people to alert authorities via text about underage drinking and illegal drug use.

In Androscoggin County, text androTip and your tip to 274637.

In the Oxford County area, text Hi oxTip and your tip to 274637.

In Franklin County, text FRANKTIP and your tip to 274637.