Word: hosting
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...grin and shrug of a little boy who's just said something naughty or possibly made fart bubbles in the bathtub, and who relies on charm to get away with it. He used it on Saturday Night Live as young Simon, of course, and as basement TV host Wayne Campbell, and once or twice as Linda Richman. Austin Powers occasionally flashed that someone-stop-me grin through his misshapen English teeth. (Dieter the German performance artist and Shrek, not so much.) The Cat in the Hat was nothing but irritating-ingratiating impishness. And for the longest time - it's nearly...
...early part of the current decade, alcohol officials had noticed the numbers on binge-drinking, and they embarked on a new kind of prohibitionist strategy to discourage it: the "social host" law, the most sweeping change in American alcohol-enforcement since Prohibition. Social-host laws make residents over 21 responsible for any underage drinking that occurs at their home. The laws vary, but those who break them can be fined, forced to pay for police costs that result from underage drinking or even jailed. Twenty-four states and more than 100 local jurisdictions have passed such laws, the majority...
...spread of social-host laws makes it harder to teach a European model here. True, it's unlikely that police are going to raid private homes when only parents and their kids are together. But social-host prosecutions can be quite aggressive; in 2002 a Virginia mom and stepfather were sentenced to eight years behind bars for serving their son and his friends for the boy's 16th birthday. The couple had collected car keys in advance, and no one was hurt. But after years of failed appeals, the mom and stepdad, now divorced, had to report to jail last...
Most social-host laws give police expansive powers. According to data compiled by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, an organization based in Calverton, Md., that studies alcohol policy, only eight of 67 U.S. jurisdictions with social-host laws require that the homeowner have "actual knowledge" of underage drinking at the house to be charged with a crime. In other words, you can violate most social-host laws even if you are in another country when your kid decides to party. And under many social-host laws, a meal with wine served at a dinner table is treated...
...surprising that social-host laws don't seem to work as intended. In 2003, San Diego became one of the first big jurisdictions to adopt a social-host ordinance (both the city and county of San Diego passed a social-host law that year). After some legal wrangling, a tougher version of the city's law was enacted in 2006. Yet according to the San Diego Police Department, patrol-car responses to parties in the city increased from 7,265 in 2002 to 9,383 last year. (This figure includes parties with both underage and of-age drinkers, since...