Bill offers tighter restrictions on underage drinking
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By NANCY HICKS / Lincoln Journal Star
In an effort to eliminate all excuses kids give police when they get caught drinking, Sen. Lowen Kruse of Omaha is proposing to ban all drinking by minors, anywhere.
They would not be allowed to drink at home with their parents.
And they wouldn’t be able to legally drink communion wine at church, under Kruse’s LB261.
State Sen. Lowen Kruse of Omaha wants to eliminate all situations where minors can drink. His bill, LB261, would strike the following exemption from state law:
“Except that a minor may consume, possess, or have physical control of alcoholic liquor in his or her permanent place of residence or on the premises of a place of religious worship on which premises alcoholic liquor is consumed as part of a religious rite, ritual or ceremony.”
“We are trying to remove all excuses for a teenager who is obviously impaired in public,” Kruse said.
Another Kruse bill would tighten the keg law, aimed at identifying who bought a keg used at a teen party.
“Police come to a keg party with teenagers standing around who are obviously impaired,” Kruse said. “But the teen says, ‘I got drunk at home.’
“There is no recourse. No way to investigate at home. Western senators say it is a huge problem in their community.”
The exemption allowing children to drink in their homes was put into law before “we knew that steady alcohol use by teens causes permanent brain damage. We really can’t condone a parent getting their kid drunk at home,” he said.
Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady commended the senator. “That is a worthy thing to try.”
Minors try to wiggle out of tickets by telling police they were drinking at home and not in public, he said. “It is a fairly common ploy.”
But that excuse is not usually successful because there is other evidence suggesting the minor was drinking at a place other than home.
“You can smell the alcohol on their breath. And they live in in Shawnee, Kansas. You have pretty good probable cause,” said Casady, who noted Lincoln police have increased minor in possession tickets by a factor of five since the late 1990s.
But the I-drank-at-home excuse can get problematic, he said, and some kids slip by.
A statewide group that works to eliminate teen drinking also had praise for the Kruse bills.
The bill eliminates some of the problems officers face when they try to enforce drinking laws, said Diane Riibe, executive director of Project Extra Mile.
For example, a law that already requires kegs to carry purchaser ID stickers has become a joke because the stickers are just ripped off, but Kruse’s keg bill would make having a keg without the sticker a misdemeanor.
Riibe believes removing all teen drinking exemptions is useful.
“It is a rare person who believes that kids ought to be able to drink at home,” she said.
Although there is probably no law enforcement problem with teens using communion as an excuse, Kruse’s bill simplifies things by removing all exemptions, she said.
Most churches that serve wine communion offer alternatives for people who can’t drink alcohol, she said.
“At my church, at least you would have to grab the right color (for wine or grape juice), when you reach for the itty bitty communion cup,” said Casady, a Lutheran.
Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.
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