Parents must say no to teen drinking
Our opposition to teen drinking and insistence that parents take responsibility is unwavering.
For years, we have pointed to the pages of the Daily Herald and stories about fights, vandalism and traffic fatalities born of the mix between teens and alcohol, and said these human tragedies should not have occurred.
With summer approaching and bringing the end of the school year, the Memorial Day and Fourth of July holidays, backyard barbecues and high school graduation parties, it is a message worth repeating — don’t allow teens to drink.
The drinking age in Illinois is 21.
There are no exceptions, exclusions or hidden clauses that allow someone younger than that age to drink beer, wine or the hard stuff.
Yet there are parents who allow newly minted high school graduates to share in the keg as if it were some rite of passage. They sign on to host a party for college students home for the summer, reasoning the teens probably drink while away at school. They say it’s better that underage drinking is done with supervision, collect the car keys and insist they’re acting as responsible parents.
Don’t believe it.
One has to look no further than the story of Jeffrey and Sara Hutsell of Deerfield to see the fallacy in that reasoning.
The Hutsells were convicted in 2007 of allowing teenagers to drink in their home during a Homecoming party for students attending Deerfield High School. Daniel Bell, 18, left the house, drove drunk and crashed his car into a tree on the way home. Bell, and his passenger, Ross Trace, also 18, were killed.
Jeffrey Hutsell was sentenced to two weeks in jail and probation; his wife also received probation.
They faced a multimillion-dollar civil suit, although the Illinois Supreme Court just last week ruled the couple should not be held accountable for Bell’s death because they did not provide the alcohol and, as social hosts, could not be liable under Illinois law.
That should be of little consolation. The Hutsells spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees as the civil and criminal cases wound through the court system, and they will have to live forever with the fact a pair of teens died after drinking at their house.
Be aware local governments take parental responsibility seriously. Many communities have approved social hosting ordinances intended to hold any adult — anyone over 17 — accountable for hosting an event where kids are drinking or doing drugs.
Those laws broaden the kinds of places where they can be enforced — such as hotels, boats, buses and banquet halls.
We say teens and booze are a bad mix, and it is a message that must resonate with parents so they won’t be part of the problem.