Underage Drinking Committee Hopes to Address Resident Concerns

Underage Drinking Ordinance Advisory Committee met again on Monday night, continuing its discussions about that could change the way police are able to deal with underage drinking on private property.

The committee is currently in talks with other municipalities who have adopted similar ordinances to see how the response has been within the community, as well as how local police units have handled enforcing the new law in those municipalities. If enacted, the law would impose penalties, including a fine and possible suspension of a drivers license, for those who are underage and are found drinking or in possession of alchol on private property. Currently, penalties are imposed for underage drinking on public property only.

Mountain Lakes is one municipality that has adopted an ordinance similar to the one proposed in Kinnelon. Since 2003, Mountain Lakes has made it so unsupervised underage drinking on private property is illegal, according to committee member Mark Gaw, who recently met with Mountain Lakes Chief of Police Robert Tovo.

Gaw stated that Tovo informed him that the Mountain Lakes police department rarely has to do so much as issue a summons to underage drinkers as a result of the ordinance, but that the ordinance does give the police more authority to do so if given probable cause to suspect underage drinking, particularly in situations where a person’s health or well-being may be at stake.

“If the officer sees that, maybe, there’s a safety issue or something like that, he can go inside,” Gaw said. “(Tovo) would hope that, before the officer went inside, he would call his shift supervisor to say ‘These are the circumstances.’”

Committee chairman Pat Caserta is confident that the borough police department would exercise similar caution when dealing with matters of underage drinking, stating that the police are simply looking to keep the community safe rather than arrest people.

“They’re looking for tools,” said Caserta. “If they have a tool, and it works in Mountain Lakes, maybe it will work here.”

Caserta also stated that an ordinance such as the one proposed may also go a long way in protecting at-risk youth who are without a strong family foundation within the community.

“When ( Lt. John) Schwartz was saying we want to intervene, he’s talking about the kids who are at risk and nobody’s doing anything about it,” Caserta said. “There are families who take the attitude of ‘not my kid.’ No matter how many times they get caught doing something wrong, it’s not their kid. A lot of the time, you see kids going down the drain because the parents won’t pull their head out of the sand.”

“(The police department’s) whole idea is, ‘Could we save one kid? Could we turn one kid away?’ They’ll never know that they did, but I know that’s part of their focus,” Caserta continued.

Despite concerns from residents and committee members that the additional power given to police may cause an invasion of privacy in some instances, Caserta believes that the police will not interfere in controlled situations where underage drinking may be involved, such as incidents that occur under direct parental supervision.

“The police have no obligation to do anything if everything’s under control,” Caserta said. “If they came for a noise complaint, and you say ‘OK’ and turn down the music, they have no reason to come into your house.”

“It’s my understanding that the concern in Kinnelon is not three kids watching a football game and having a beer,” Caserta added. “The concern is that you have the kids getting in these situations where they go to a house on a regular basis, either because there is no one there, parent-wise, or because the parents aren’t supervising the kids.”

The proposed ordinance has received mixed reaction from members of the community. For this reason, Caserta urged his fellow committee members to reach out to the community for feedback going forward.

“One of the things I was going ask people to think about between now and next week is, if the ordinance, as it presently exists, doesn’t make sense to the people we’re talking to, what might?” Caserta asked. “What changes might be made to make it acceptable to more people?”

The committee will meet again Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the conference room of the Kinnelon Municipal Building.