Adults who buy alcohol for minors should face jail time in addition to a $1,000 fine, said Del. Tanya Shewell, R-Carroll County.
Shewell plans to introduce a bill to tack a possible 60-day jail term on to the existing fine and put the conviction on adults? criminal records, she said.
Currently, adults face a $1,000 fine for a first offense, which is civil, not criminal.
“Don?t make alcohol readily available so [minors] feel weird by not drinking,” Shewell said. “Kids just don?t think sometimes and they don?t always make the right decisions.”
In Carroll last year, there were 38 alcohol-related suspensions from public schools, a 65 percent increase compared with 23 such suspensions the previous year, said Larry Faries, head of schools security in Carroll.
He was unsure why there was such an increase.
“We need this done,” Shewell said. “It?s very vital.”
This is the second consecutive year Shewell will introduce the bill.
She expects to have liquor companies be one of many to speak in support of the bill, which failed to pass last year. The bill did not pass the Senate because it did not gain full support in the judicial proceedings committee and could not come to a full vote afterward.
Parents? allowing minors and their friends to drink at their homes should no longer be considered a rite of passage, Shewell said.
She cited an instance in Pennsylvania last year when two teenage girls sneaked out at night with a spare set of car keys and struck another vehicle head-on, breaking dozens of the other driver?s bones.
Sex parties, originally reported last year, with parents buying alcohol for kids and allowing them to have orgies were another impetus for the proposal, Shewell said.
