Los Gatos made headlines in 2020 when “Party Mom” Shannon O’Connor was arrested for hosting alcohol-filled parties for her teenage son and his friends.
While her trial is ongoing, the town of Los Gatos has made efforts to prevent underage drinking – and its consequences – through a social host ordinance that fines adults for parties at their house where underage youth have access to alcohol, whether the parents are present or not.
In the year since it was put into effect, there have been at least three social host violations in Los Gatos. And while addressing teen drinking takes a multipronged approach, parents can play a big role in how their teens think about alcohol.
Holding parents accountable
There’s a misconception among parents that teenagers are going to drink no matter what, and they’d rather have them do it under their own roof with supervision, says Linda Richter, senior vice president of prevention research and analysis for the Partnership to End Addiction.
“And there’s the corollary belief that if you do that, once kids are left on their own – let’s say they go off to college or they go off on their own – they’re going to understand how to drink responsibly and they’re not going to go crazy and engage in, you know, very risky drinking,” Richter says.
In fact, she says, the opposite is true: Teens who were allowed to drink underage are more likely to engage in risky and excessive drinking and have more consequences related to their alcohol use later on.
A study from the National Center for Biotechnology Information found minors who attended parties where parents supplied alcohol were more at risk for heavy drinking, alcohol-related problems and drinking and driving.
A 2021 study of 24 California cities found that minors who lived in cities with social host ordinances drank less at home than minors in cities without these ordinances. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration named social host ordinances among its best practices to prevent underage drinking.
Under the Los Gatos ordinance, property owners can be fined $1,500 for the first offense involving underage drinking at their residence and $3,000 for any additional offenses.
Social host ordinances create a consequence for parents to deter underage drinking, but they also shift the blame. In her decades of research, Richter says she’s found that parents who provide alcohol for underage party guests often worry about being liked by their kids, especially in affluent communities.
“Parents in more affluent communities kind of are friends with their kids, or want to be friends with their kids or want to be seen as cool and are kind of worried that if they say no too much, their kids are going to somehow go off the deep end,” Richter says. “And the fact is that… young people really do better with some boundaries and limitations. And when there aren’t any, they don’t feel safe and secure.”
The ordinance gives law enforcement the ability to get involved. “Problems associated with underage social gatherings on private or public property are difficult to prevent and deter unless the Los Gatos Police Department has the legal authority to direct the social host to disperse the gathering and to cite the social host,” the ordinance reads.
“This is really honing in on the serving of alcohol to minors,” Town Attorney Gabrielle Wheelan says.
The Montana Institute
While keeping parties from occurring is important, experts say the messaging around alcohol consumption is equally important.
Los Gatos Union School District and the town partnered with youth alcohol and drug abuse prevention experts from the Montana Institute to promote healthy lifestyles and discourage teen drinking through a Positive Community Norms committee.
Sarah Thompson, director of training and communications at the Montana Institute, says one of the biggest causes of teen drinking is the misconception that everyone in their peer group is drinking, but that’s often not the case.
Nationwide statistics from 2018-19 showed Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District students consumed alcohol and drugs at a rate disproportionately higher than neighboring schools.
Nearly 28% of the 11th-graders surveyed at Los Gatos High School said they had consumed alcohol in the previous 30 days, compared to the state average of 16% and Saratoga High School’s rate of 15%.
Instead of scare tactics and anti-alcohol lessons, the Montana Institute focuses on elevating and normalizing students’ healthy habits, pointing to the nearly three-quarters of 11-graders who said they don’t drink.
“We intentionally flipped that to say we’re looking to increase the number of students who are making healthy and safe choices to not use alcohol and other drugs,” Thompson says. “We’re looking at growing the number of students who already are not using because already the majority of students in Los Gatos do not use alcohol and other drugs.”
The institute starts with surveys to gauge the misconceptions among students, asking them how many of their peers they think are drinking alcohol or doing drugs, and then asking them if they do. Results show that many students inflate the number of their peers who are drinking.
“Further analysis of the data also tells us that misperception is a risk factor. … Students who believe most other students are using alcohol regularly are more likely to use it themselves,” Thompson says. “When those perceptions are corrected, research shows that the behavior is also likely to change.”
The Montana Institute uses surveys to measure how those assumptions change, but Thompson says they capture lots of anecdotal evidence from the communities they’ve worked with in the past. One community they worked in for five years saw a sharp decline in graduation parties that served alcohol.
The Los Gatos elementary and high school districts will pay $11,200 and $28,000 to host workshop and for subsequent surveys and events; the town of Los Gatos is picking up $16,800 of the tab. The workshop costs around $3,500, and surveys later this year will cost $11,000 for students and $18,000 for teachers.
“The California Healthy Kids Survey results, not only within this district but throughout the region, show that most students make healthy and safe choices when it comes to not using alcohol,” says Tanya De La Cruz, a spokesperson for the high school district. “Our job as a school district has extended beyond just academic support. In partnering with the Montana Institute, we are leveraging on their remarkable success in correcting misperceptions of norms and increasing student health by training our community to use the Positive Community Norms framework.”
Thompson says parents can also have misconceptions about how many students drink. The Montana Institute leads workshops and conducts surveys with parents to understand how they think about and enforce drinking in their homes.