Grad night at Six Flags Darien Lake leads to 74 alcohol arrests
Posted Monday, May 24, 2004 8:51 AM | Contributed by supermandl
The Genesee County Sheriff's Department joined with Six Flags Darien Lake Friday night to investigate underage drinking at the amusement park's annual grad night, and ended up making 74 arrests. Most of those arrested were charged with unlawful posession of alcohol or marijuana. There was also an arrest made for selling alcohol to a minor.
This type of behavior happened last year at the park, in the parking lot... Which is why they cut the Grad-Night hours down from overnight to just 5pm to 2am.
Looks like changing the times didn't help (as if it would??). The next step is to either have more visual police roaming the lot in golf carts or whatever (not undercover, as was indicated), or cancel it for a year to show that they (SFDL) mean business when they want to keep this a drug & alcohol free event.
It's kind of ashame... but even more ashame that it's not just a few bad-apples, but a whole tree of them. Sure, there were 74 arrests... but how many others got away?
High school seniors have been getting drunk on grad night since the invention of alcohol, or high school, which ever came last. Why would it be any different at an amusement park?
I'm sure if they did a search the weekend after any prom they would find the same thing.
I know the laws are lot more strict in the US, but as far as I understand the article, these kids were not vandalizing or threatening anyone. Arresting 74 young people sounds a little harsh for my disgustingly liberal european mindset. :)
Does anyone know what happens to these kids after the arrest? A night in prison? Social Service? A letter to the parents?
Oh, DawgbyteII I couldn´t resist checking your profile after I read your post. According to your age, you are "officially" still a member of "today´s youth". So, cheers ;)
Penalties for underage consumption varies, and most of the time it's a slap on the wrist. However, there's a judge in Ashland County, Ohio, that had college kids doing five days in jail! A friend of mine went through that, said it was an awful experience. That hardass judge was news in the National Enquirer along side the three-headed alien babies.
Anyone else find it funny that this event is sponsored by the Genessee Council on Alcohol and Substance Abuse and these kids are in the parking lot smoking marijuana and drinking.
coasteraddict: individual kids make reasonable choices all the time. Groups of kids are almost always morons in the aggregate, bad apples notwithstanding.
*** This post was edited by Brian Noble 5/24/2004 9:10:13 PM ***
The aftereffects can be bad for saome of these kids that they or there parents may not be aware of. In Wisc.(and every state has there own rules) when a underage person is found guilty of possessing/drinking alcoholic beverages it is listed on there driving records which will cause there insurance rates to go up. And the same holds true for something as what some may think is minor like a not wearing a seat belt viol. When teenagers/young adults are cited for these viol. it can have a maor affect on insurance as they are already in a high risk group due to there age.
