A Fairfax County panel is calling on the neighboring D.C. government to reinstate criminal penalties for underage drinking, arguing that Fairfax teens are crossing the Potomac to get drunk with little fear of consequences.
The Fairfax County Oversight Committee on Drinking and Driving wants county supervisors to push District officials to re-criminalize the offense. The change would “reduce the frequency of underage [Fairfax] youth driving into D.C. to drink alcohol where underage drinking is a civil offense, thus not enforced by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department,” according to a report from the committee.
James Fell, the committee’s chairman, evoked a June 2007 crash near the Springfield Mixing Bowl that claimed the life of a George Mason University student, who was drunk and behind the wheel, and three of her friends.
Between 2003 and 2007, Fairfax averaged 936 alcohol-related crashes a year, two percent of which were fatal. An average of 19 people a year died in those crashes.
The committee also supported streamlining the processing time for drunken-driving arrests, which can take between two and four hours of an officer’s time, as well as increased funding to publicize the county’s driving-while-intoxicated checkpoint program. The panel asked Fairfax County supervisors to support legislation that would require all drivers convicted of DWI to use an interlock device that tests a driver’s blood alcohol content before allowing the vehicle to engage for at least six months.
D.C. Councilman Jim Graham said he would look into the request to establish criminal penalties for underage drinking.
“I have a lot of respect for my colleagues there,” he said. “I will certainly look into it.”
