By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

Friday nights in South Portland and Cape Elizabeth are likely to be a little quieter this spring, as municipalities have secured a total of $38,000 to help prevent underage drinking. Nearly $170,000 dollars was awarded to 15 different police departments all over southern Maine through a federally funded Enforcement of Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) grant. The funds will be used to support law enforcement efforts and to raise public awareness of the harmful effects underage drinking poses to today’s young people.

“Underage drinking has always been a problem here in South Portland, as well as any other community,” said South Portland Police Officer Linda Barker, who wrote the city’s grant application.

Barker said the money is used to fund alcohol-specific law enforcement details to patrol areas where underage drinking is likely to occur. 

 “We find different ways to be effective, including targeting weekend, vacation, prom and graduation times,” she said.

Police also conduct investigations by following legally purchased alcohol to an event where underage drinking may be taking place, Barker said.

“Officers can be in plain clothes or uniforms, marked or unmarked cars while monitoring targeted party spots in the area,” she said.

Last Friday night South Portland Detective Frank Stepnic was on patrol with officer A.J. Nelson in an unmarked car, checking for individuals who had been placed under a curfew or house arrest while also keeping an eye out for underage drinking at several known spots in the South Portland area.

“This time of year it’s pretty quiet,” Stepnic said. “Once it gets warmer outside you’ll see kids drinking all over the place.”

Stepnic said it can be challenging to locate drinking minors who have learned law enforcement techniques, which have constantly be reviewed and varied in order to be effective.

“This is just a small part of what we do,” he said.

While the threat of being caught drinking can lower the number of minors who do so, prevention is more than just “running around issuing summonses to people,” Barker said.

“We’ve been working in schools with issues around underage drinking and substance abuse,” she said. “Enforcement is important but it’s really everything else that comes with it.”

It can be difficult to educate parents who may not understand the severity of the problem, Barker said.

“Some parents are constantly looking for ways to make [underage drinking] safer, such as allowing their children to drink at home after they’ve taken their keys. That whole idea is just wrong,” she said. 

Barker said it’s also important to discourage young adults who are providing alcohol to minors.

“They’re out there and getting it somehow, from someone. We have to let the people know about the liability involved with furnishing, ” Barker said. “Really, you just have to raise awareness on a lot of different levels.”

Guy Cousins, the acting director of the state’s Office of Substance Abuse, said the Federal Justice Department’s office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention program awards the EUDL grants. The grants are largely an effort to reduce underage substance abuse in response to a request for action made by the U.S. Attorney General when he visited Maine last year. 

Barker said the South Portland department’s underage drinking prevention efforts are currently funded through another grant they received in January. 

The “several hundred dollar” grant was significantly less than the $15,000 they will receive over the next two years.

Cape Elizabeth will also receive $15,000, and Westbrook will receive $8,000 as part of the community building aspect of the program. Westbrook was not eligible this year’s EUDL grant, having received funding in the past.

“We all work together,” Westbrook police captain Tom Roth said.

In addition to Cape Elizabeth and South Portland’s contributions, Roth said Westbrook will receive $2,000 from the Cumberland County Underage Drinking Enforcement Task Force and one-third of a $15,000 Maine Office of Substance Abuse grant given to Westbrook, Gorham and the University of Southern Maine (USM) police.

“We ran into several Westbrook residents who were renting houses to students at USM in Gorham where underage drinking was occurring,” Roth said. “We thought it would make a good mix so we applied for a regional grant.”

Cape Elizabeth police chief Neil Williams called the sharing of funds amongst departments “an effort to hit on community partnerships.”