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Arlington Heights considers raising fines for parents hosting underage drinking

Arlington Heights officials are discussing increasing the fines for parents who allow underage children to drink alcohol in their homes.

The municipal code change came up during a discussion at Monday night's committee of the whole, and although most of the board was in favor of raising the fines, trustees wanted more research before setting the amounts.

Under Arlington Heights code, the violation — often referred to as a social host law, or facilitating the use of alcoholic beverages by underage persons at a residence — can result in a fine between $5 and $750, community service or jail time up to six months. On Monday, village staff recommended increasing the maximum fine to $5,000.

Village Manager Randy Recklaus said the request for an increase came from the police department after Buffalo Grove recently increased its maximum fine to $2,000.

“We feel it adds a deterrent to folks not condoning this kind of behavior,” Recklaus said.

Assistant Village Attorney Robin Ward said there hasn't been an uptick in these kind of incidents, but that the police department wanted to be pre-emptive.

Arlington Heights first instituted fines for hosting parties for minors in the 1990s, and Village President Tom Hayes said he was chaired the original task force to study the topic then.

“The fines haven't changed since then, this is an appropriate time to change them,” Hayes said on Monday.

Trustee Tom Glasgow, who is also a criminal defense attorney, said he also wanted to see the minimum fine increased from $5 to a higher number such as $1,000.

“You have to make an impact,” Glasgow said. “The results of these kinds of things can be catastrophic.”

Some trustees said they were concerned that such a high minimum fine would restrict judges in cases where a parent didn't know children were drinking or other extenuating circumstances.

Village said they will research fines in other towns and bring the topic back for further discussion at a later meeting.

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