Thanks to a grant from the Maine Office of Substance Abuse, the Cape Elizabeth Police Department will be able to start cracking down on underage drinking.

“We have zero tolerance for it, and we’re going to be hitting it hard with enforcement,” said Officer Mark Dorval.

The first step for the police department was to develop a PowerPoint presentation about the health and legal risks of underage drinking, directed toward teenagers and their parents. The presentation can be accessed from both the town’s and police department’s Web sites. Starting in early spring, officers will begin going out on unannounced evenings with the specific intention of finding underage drinking parties.

“In the past, we weren’t able to do that with the budget,” Dorval said. The majority of the $2,500 grant will be used to pay overtime for officers.

According to Erica Schmitz, of the Maine Office of Substance Abuse, nine grants were awarded to pay for prevention-based substance abuse enforcement strategies. Schmitz is also the coordinator of the Cumberland County Underage Drinking Task Force, a group made up of area law enforcement agencies and representatives from the District Attorney’s Office and the Department of Corrections that convenes once a month to talk about successes, challenges and issues in regard to underage drinking.

The Cape Elizabeth Police Department is participating in the task force and hopes to collaborate with South Portland, having officers from both police departments working as a team to find underage parties. “It’s an issue we need to look at and take appropriate measures,” Dorval said, but it’s not one that is specific to Cape Elizabeth. “It think it’s a problem everywhere,” he said.

Schmitz agreed. “It’s really a national issue,” she said.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office issued a Call to Action against underage drinking. “Too many Americans consider underage drinking a rite of passage to adulthood,” said acting Surgeon General Kenneth Moritsugu. The Call to Action is an attempt to change the attitude toward underage drinking in America in lieu of recent research that has revealed the extent of the health risks associated with it.

Schmitz emphasized the need to target parents in educating the public about underage drinking, noting the severity of furnishing and hosting laws. If an underage drinker suffers from an alcohol-related injury, the furnishing of the alcohol is considered a felony.

“It’s not just about taking the keys,” she said. “We need adults to stop enabling kids to drink.”

Schmitz said there is a role to play for everyone in the community, from law enforcement agencies to businesses to policy makers, to help conquer underage drinking. “We all need to work together to prevent it completely,” she said.

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