Chico anti-booze police get $178,000 fed grant

[hoosier]

Police to cite drinkers
Mando Navarro
Assistant News Editor
August 24, 2005


Whether it's in the "drunk tank" or the comfort of their own beds, it's time for Chico State partiers to wake up.

This semester, police will set up booths downtown and be on the lookout for anyone who is obviously drunk, police said at a press conference Aug. 16 in the Bell Memorial Union. They will be handing out information about the safety of drinking and arresting people for driving or walking under the influence.

Representatives from Chico State, University Police, Chico Police Department, Campus Alcohol and Drug Education Center and Alcoholic Beverage Control have set more goals and initiatives this year to strike Chico's party image.

Other problems, such as rape, disgust ABC District Supervisor Robert Farrar, who works with 11 counties, including Butte County, to decrease underage and unsafe drinking. There's never a night when Farrar doesn't have to help or arrest someone when he comes to Chico, he said.

"I can't tell you how many girls I've seen trying to crawl back to their dorm rooms," Farrar said. "We give them a taxi. Someone needs to take care of them."

Sometimes protecting women from violence means putting them in the detoxification center, also known as the drunk tank, in the Butte County Jail in Oroville.

"Sometimes you have to arrest people for their own safety," Farrar said.

The main problem with Chico is that bars and parties are within walking distance of downtown, Farrar said.

"Every city has bars, but many people live here that don't commute," he said. "Here they can walk."

Farrar is focused on educating, not punishing, students about alcohol abuse, he said.

"We want to send a clear message to new and beginning students on how we want to reduce drinking," said Shauna Quinn, program director for CADEC. "It's an education and enforcement initiative. We're working together to educate not just students, but the community, on how to have a safe party."

Students can now call the C-line, a confidential student-concerns hot-line, to report hazing, hate crimes, excessive noise from parties and other problems.

Brochures are being distributed to teach students how to throw a safe party.

Ideas include: inviting only people you know, providing a way to serve alcohol only to those at least 21 years old, and not playing drinking games.

Also, any tenant will be fined up to $1,000 if police respond to a party twice within a 12-hour period.

During the first months of school, when parties are more abundant, ABC plans to plant underage drinkers looking to "shoulder tap" those older than 21. Anyone caught buying for or selling alcohol to minors will be fined, Farrar said.

The changes will be funded by a $178,000 federal grant.

Both the University Police and Chico Police Department will be working at booths and checking for anyone who is obviously driving, biking or walking under the influence.

Any student who appears too drunk to walk will be arrested for being drunk in public, police said. Officers will have to decide who is drunk and who is just on the way home from a bar or party.

"There's not a limit," Chico police Capt. John Rucker said. "If an individual isn't able to take care of themselves, they'll go to the drunk tank and sober up."

The booths will be set up at popular party spots, such as Ivy and Warner streets.

The purpose of the booths is not solely to arrest drunken people, Rucker said. It is to educate them on the dangers of drinking.

"It's a fun thing that makes people think," he said. "Many students are so drunk they're carried by their friends, and when they go home, they end up in the hospital. We're trying to reduce the number of students injured and killed on campus today."

Police are not trying to spoil students' good times, University Police Sgt. Eric Reichel said.

"When people are dying, that's not fun," Reichel said. "That's what we're trying to prevent. That's why we're stepping in. No one's having fun when someone's being assaulted."