Lake in the Hills tightens underage drinking law

The recent conviction of a Deerfield couple who turned a blind eye to underage drinking spurred Lake in the Hills officials to rethink their own rules on the matter.

Trustees Thursday unanimously approved a tightening of the law that restricts the prosecution of adults who allowed minors to drink in their homes.

The village's previous liquor control code stated that adults must have known that minors were consuming alcohol in their home and that only after minors left that residence could they be charged with a violation.

The new code says adults can be held responsible for underage drinking in their home regardless of whether the minors left the residence where consumption was taking place.

James Wales, village director of police and public safety, said the code loophole has prevented a number of homeowners from being prosecuted for allowing underage drinking.

"Under the previous code, if there was an individual under 21 in possession of alcohol, they had to leave the residence where they consumed it before we could cite the adult there," Wales said.

In the Deerfield case, Jeffrey and Sara Hutsell were sentenced to a combination of jail time, fines and community service after their son, Tyler, threw a 2006 homecoming party in their home. Underage drinking at the party resulted in a drunken driving crash that killed Daniel Bell, a Deerfield High senior, and Ross Trace, an alumnus of the school.

"Luckily, we haven't had something like that happen yet in Lake in the Hills," Trustee Joe Murawski said. "But it really made us look down the road to what could happen if the rules weren't changed."

The minimum fine for an underage drinking violation in the village, a misdemeanor, is $500.