Stephens Commissioners Hear Presentation On Social Host Ordinance

Stephens County Commissioners are going to look at a request for the county to implement a social host ordinance designed to try to hold adults more accountable for underage drinking.

Carmen Westbrook from Hearts for Families made a presentation on the social host ordinance to county commissioners at their meeting on Tuesday.

Westbrook said that current laws can sometimes make it difficult to hold adults accountable when teens are drinking.

“What happens when law enforcement responds to a drinking party, but is unable to determine who the supplier is, is nothing happens and even if you are able to determine who the supplier is, if the supplier is different from the person who owns the environment where the party is occurring, then that is a whole other scenario,” said Westbrook.

She said a social host ordinance provides better enforcement over existing laws and assigns responsibility to adults who have knowledge of drinking parties taking place on their property.

“A social host is someone who knowingly hosts or allows underage drinking on property that he or she owns, leases, or otherwise controls,” said Westbrook. “The key word there being ‘knowingly’. If the host possesses knowledge of the party and underage drinking, he or she does not have to be at the property to be held liable.”

As an example, Westbrook talked about a party last year in Franklin County.

“They actually cited 30 youth that were there,” said Westbrook. “To this day, no adult has been held responsible for renting that barn and allowing those youth to come there and drink.”

The citation would go through the county’s Magistrate Court and require a mandatory court appearance as an alleged misdemeanor.

Stephens County Commissioner Debbie Whitlock said she has seen adults held accountable for underage drinking under existing laws in State Court.

She said she does not know if another law is needed.

“I hear what you are saying, but I tend to think the Georgia code sufficiently addresses this issue,” said Whitlock.

According to Westbrook, Fayette and Dawson counties in Georgia have social host ordinances.

Stephens County Commissioners said they will look at the ordinances in those counties and decide whether it would be appropriate to consider in Stephens County.

Franklin County Commissioners considered the same social host ordinance earlier this year, but have not to this point taken action to move forward with it.