Hopkins Police Want Tougher Underage Drinking Law

Hopkins police want to create a new penalty for people who permit underage drinking on property for which they’re responsible.

The so-called “social host ordinance” would allow the city to charge people with a misdemeanor if underage drinking takes place that they knew about or should have known about.

The ordinance would apply to homeowners, renters and people who rent banquet halls, picnic shelters and other places to host events.

“This would be another tool to hold those people accountable,” Police Chief Mike Reynolds said at Tuesday’s council meeting.

Providing alcohol to minors is already illegal in Minnesota, but Hopkins police say proving those cases is so difficult that they need some other way to deter people from providing alcohol to underage drinkers.

City Attorney Jason Hutchison added that, under existing law, there really isn’t any responsibility on the property owner to do anything so long as they’re not actually furnishing the alcohol.

Because of this, Brenda Badger with the One Voice Coalition, a communitywide effort to decrease substance abuse, asked the city to consider creating a social host ordinance. Police reviewed the proposal and brought it before the council.

If the ordinance goes through, the city could charge people who allow drinking on their property without needing to prove who, exactly, gave the minors the alcohol. Those who are convicted could be fined as much as $1,000 and sentenced to as many as 90 days in jail.

There are now social host ordinances in 76 Minnesota cities and counties.

But Councilwoman Cheryl Youakim worried the language was too vague and could be used to prosecute parents whose children threw parties while they were away. Instead, she preferred the tougher standard used for civil cases involving underage drinkers.

For someone to be liable under that standard, they must have “knowingly or recklessly” permitted underage drinking on property under their control when they were in a position to prevent it.

Youakim said she’s all for prohibiting underage drinking but wants to be cautious about how this is done.

Police said their goal is to deter underage drinking, not charge as many people as possible. They said they would understand that parents out of the house usually don’t know or should know that a house party is taking place—although they could prosecute the kids who threw the party, Hutchison said.

If the new ordinance takes effect, police would also launch a media campaign to warn people about the stiffer penalties for allowing minors to drink, Police Capt. Tony Hanlin said.

“We hope we wouldn’t just pass an ordinance and keep it secret,” he said.

Police will get their first shot at presenting the idea to the public when the ordinance goes before the council Sept. 6 for a first reading.