Parent Alert May 2023

By rbean | May 28, 2025 |

CIRCLE Coalition would like to remind you that it is illegal to provide alcohol to minors, and hopes their message resonates with the minority of parents who furnish alcohol for underage drinkers. The majority of parents do not provide alcohol to minors, and the majority of teens do not drink underage. This campaign is a good reminder to communicate with your children, friends, and family members about your stance on underage drinking. CIRCLE Coalition invites you to join them in encouraging safe and sober celebrations, and to not be a party to underage drinking.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reveals that giving teens alcohol increases their likelihood to drink alcohol and the amount of alcohol they’ll drink. There are also legal consequences for violating social host laws for both the adult who provides the alcohol and the minor who drinks it:

Additional Liability
If you do allow minors to consume alcohol at a party at your house and the minor subsequently gets into an accident and hurts someone or hurts themselves, the parents of that child can sue you and you could be found liable for any damages caused by the child’s actions.

A minor over the .08 limit
If you are a minor and you test over the .08 limit, the penalties are more parallel to the adult OVI charge. If it is your first OVI, you will be facing ten days to one year in jail, a fine of $500 to $1000, 6 points on your license, and a license suspension of six months up to three years. If this is your second OVI, you could be facing up to a year in jail, up to a $1500 fine, and a suspension of up to five years.

Additional charges that can come with an Underage OVI
In addition to being cited for the Underage OVI, the police officer is likely to be able to cite you with additional offenses. For example, if you rolled through a stop sign or were swerving into another lane, you could be cited with a traffic offense. If you have any open bottles of alcohol in your vehicle, you could be subject to an open container citation. If you used a fake ID to purchase the alcohol and the police officer seizes it, you could be subject to a prohibited acts charge. If you try to show the police officer the fake ID and tell him that you are over 21, you could face falsification charges.

Underage drinking has other legal, health, and safety risks, including:

Youth who begin drinking before turning 15 are 6.7 times more likely to have alcohol use disorder, which includes alcoholism, at some point in their lives, according to research published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychology.
According to the NIAAA, youth who drink are more likely to be involved in a physical or sexual assault as either victim or assailant after drinking than those who do not drink.
More than 4,300 youth die each year due to underage drinking, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those deaths occur from vehicle crashes but also homicides, suicides, alcohol poisoning, falls, burns and drowning.

About Parents Who Host Lose The Most
Parents Who Host Lose The Most is a media campaign created by Prevention Action Alliance to help communities across the United States to prevent underage drinking. Since 1999, Parents Who Host has helped hundreds of communities in all 50 states. Learn more at preventionactionalliance.org.

Please join us this Thursday, May 11th to learn how social host liability laws work in your community.

Food will be provided.

We hope to see you there!

Thank you for being a vital part of our community!

Please click on the link below to send this Parent Alert to a family member or friend. They will also have the opportunity to sign up to receive monthly Parent Alerts.

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