Cars wrapped about half a mile down Brushy Ridge road last night as New Canaan teens threw a drinking party at 126 Brushy Ridge road. The noise was so loud from the top of the street I stopped to see if people were all right. I witnessed over half a dozen teens arriving at the party some carrying in alcohol. When I asked three boys if they were allowed to legally have this party they ran down the driveway and started yelling the cops are coming ‘run get out’. It was a mass exodus of at least 60 teens rushing to get into their cars and leave the scene. I asked a few if they were about to drink and drive but no one answered.
This boy (pictured below) started screaming and cussing at me for calling the cops and then his friends joined in. They thought it was illegal for a reporter to stand on the road and take a photo of them and kept screaming foul words ‘you can’t do that b*tch’ it’s illegal to take my photo’. The driver of the car I was with said he heard them cussing in the street for awhile expressing their frustration that my call to the NCPD had busted the party.
Officer McFadden Couldn’t Find This?
By the time officer McFadden arrived most of the teens had left. I told the officer I saw teens leaving the party with beer and had photos. He chose not to take a statement from me. There was even the driver of the car I was with who was a witness to the teen party and angry yelling on the street.
This morning NCPD top dog Leon Krolikowski told me McFadden found that the parents WHERE home yet he saw no alcohol on the premise so no arrests were made. Yet there are two witnesses who say otherwise and the photo of the boy carrying out the beer was sent to the NCPD last night.
The home is appraised at near $1 million according to town records. I confirmed with the owner that they rent it out and are concerned these kind of parties could happen in the home. He wouldn’t give me the name of the tenant. I could not reach the tenants for comment.
A local resident, Roy Abramowitz, told me as he drove to work he still saw beer cans around the drive way this morning. But NCPD Officer McFadden couldn’t find any last night?
It’s also not clear if the teens I saw with beers in their hands were 21 or over. They sure looked young. But if they were a legal drinking age then why did so many run when word got out that the cops were coming.
Parents who host parties where people under the age of 21 are drinking (or doing drugs) can be arrested for up to a felony in Connecticut. New Canaan police just don’t seem to do the leg work to carry out that part of the law.
Great work. By calling the cops you made the kid with the Coors jump in his car and drive to a parking lot with his friends somewhere to consume that alcohol instead of consuming it in someone’s home where a parent could have intervened had something gone wrong. Brilliant work. Problem solved.
The notion that parents should monitor underage drinking in their home is at the heart of this problem. If they want to do that with their own teens the law gives them some room to do this. But to host a party with other people’s teens is not right. In CT it’s illegal.
I think Teri’s point here is the local police have been given evidence that there was drinking at the home while the parents are there and ignored investigating it. We pay the cops to implement the laws not be the judge on them.
Teri did you see the police try to id any of the teens and check their age and test their breath?
The police have to use judgement on where to focus enforcement resources. Breaking up underage drinking parties in homes just leads to underage drinking in parking lots which is a much bigger problem. This is why the police did the right thing in not getting the law involved here.
That kid with the Coors case drank that beer somewhere and then drove home.
We have an abundance of well paid police in New Canaan. They have two problems to police – domestic violence and underage drinking or adult DUI’s. Until they stop the nexus of the problem which appears to be parents with ideas like yours then they haven’t done what we paid them to do.
Thank you Teri for bringing this situation to the attention of the public.
Susan,
First of all I don’t live there and I’m not the parent of a teen. When I was a teen my friends parents let us have parties in their house. We had to surrender our keys. Our classmates who were not as fortunate drove around to parking lots and parks to drink.
So answer the question then, if that boy with the case of Coors had to leave the party, where was he forced to go to consume it? If you bust parties at houses that does absolute zero to stop teenage drinking, it just forces them underground – away from parents and shelter.
Prohibition never worked for adults why should it work for teens?
The police were very wise to show discretion and should be commended.
Seems obvious.
What, it’s illegal to drink alcohol before 21 years old in the U.S.??? You must be kidding, no??
Alternative View is a genious. If I’m following his or her logic, we should allow our teens to fornicate on the front lawn and smoke pot in the basement because they are going to be doing it somewhere, why not at home sweet home? Look AV, this isn’t the movie Footloose and Reverend Moore is nowhere in sight. We are trying to raise responsible children who obey the law. Parents who encourage this and justify it under some sort of safety conduct are doing a huge disservice to their kids. There are reasons that we have age restrictions on certain actvities and items. Yes, many will drink somewhere else. But, allow this to be a difficult moral decision that they make. I understand wanting to keep our kids safe, but by encouraging this behavior to happen at home will most definitely encourage it to happen elsewhere anyway.