City Considers Allowing Police Warrantless Access To Homes To Check For Underage Drinking

By: Ben Bullard, personalliberty.com -

In a move that, if adopted, would almost certainly be brought into the courts, a northern New Jersey town is contemplating an ordinance that would grant local police access — without a search warrant — into private residences in order to check up on allegations of underage drinking.

Officials in the town of Montville, on the western edge of the New York metropolitan area’s sprawl, are discussing the new ordinance — perhaps counterintuitively — in terms of keeping underage drinking in check while helping young people avoid establishing criminal records that can follow them throughout their lives.

“While teens caught drinking face criminal charges under state law, officers under the Montville proposal could choose to let underage drinkers face lesser penalties,” CBS New York reported Thursday.

But many residents, both young and old, aren’t buying it.

“I am not in favor of them just coming into the homes, because there — other people have said — there are children that do make mistakes on various occasions, and that’s more of a parent responsibility rather than a police responsibility,” resident Anna Cecire told CBS.

“I just feel that it’s not really their business to be going into people’s houses,” echoed teenager Brendan Zevits. “If you want to do that, you need to get a warrant.”

The Montville council is expected to hammer out some reportedly gray areas in the ordinance’s language at a Sept. 23 meeting.

Of course, they could just do the sensible thing and toss this bad local law in the trash. If they don’t, it’s hard to imagine that a judge wouldn’t do it for them.