Letter to the Editor: Underage Drinking in Venice

This letter to the editor was submitted by Jeff Christensen, director of the Sober Living Network.

One of my favorite parts of the job as Director of the Sober Living Network is working with young people. I’ve been honored to hear their stories and humbled to learn what it’s like making one’s way as a kid in today’s world. For that reason, I want to discuss an often-forgotten topic I view as one of the biggest threats to our youth population: underage drinking.

All of us who live or work in Venice love our beautiful beach community. But the truth is, in addition to its sunshine and palm trees, Venice has a lot of alcohol. There are 106 licensed alcohol businesses in Venice – that’s 33 per square mile, which blows away the county’s average. Venice’s concentration of bars, restaurants and convenience stores is going to increase, not decrease. It’s a beach town, and alcohol plays a real and important role in its economy. So what do we do?

Alcohol remains the drug of choice for our youth – more than marijuana or tobacco – and it causes the most damage.  In my daily work, I see a young community that is steeped in it. It’s not just the kids on the boardwalk – I interact with young people from all walks of life who suffer from the consequences of alcohol misuse. Underage drinking is so common in our society, it’s often expected and accepted as a rite-of-passage. It shouldn’t be.

Alcohol use begins early and increases rapidly with age: more than one-fifth of underage drinkers begin before they are 13 years old. Studies show that kids who start drinking before age 15 not only face potential cognitive or learning problems, they are also five times more likely to face alcohol dependence at some point in their lives. Kids who use alcohol expose themselves to a huge range of dangers, from traffic crashes, to academic problems, to teen pregnancy, to sexual assault.

The sheer volume of bars, restaurants and liquor stores in Venice is staggering. Alcohol is everywhere. Access is easy.  We’re kidding ourselves if we think that doesn’t have a huge impact on the culture of drinking among Venice’s youth. In fact, a 2010 research study conducted by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation drew a direct link between the density of alcohol outlets and underage drinking. According to the study, higher levels of drinking and excessive drinking were observed among youths residing in zip codes with a high number of businesses that sell or serve alcohol.

How, then, do we make a dent in our community’s underage drinking problem? It’s a complex problem that is going to require a wide-ranging approach. If we see it as a rite-of-passage, it’s an incredibly dangerous one and we need to do more than ask underage youth to “just say no!” We need to begin to establish a culture that no longer supports underage drinking and is intolerant of businesses that sell alcohol to minors. Ultimately, adults need to amend their attitudes toward underage drinking.

However, this shift in cultural attitudes doesn’t just mean keeping kids from buying alcohol. It also means keeping adults from supplying underage youth with liquor. Surveys show that young people obtain alcohol from a variety of sources, including older friends, strangers who purchase for them as a favor or for a fee and even parents or other relatives. In other words, we, the adults, are a huge part of the problem. We are burying our heads in the sand when we lay the sole burden for underage drinking on young people.

As adults – parents, teachers, business owners, bartenders and friends and relatives – we have a collective responsibility for taking steps, wherever we can, to insist our community be responsible and vigilant when it comes to preventing underage drinking. I know we’ll never eliminate underage drinking, but we can stop supporting it by reducing youth access to alcohol. If we do this, fewer underage youth will drink, and those that do drink are likely to consume less alcohol. Underage drinking is already illegal. Let’s make facilitating it unacceptable.