After Teen Drinking Incident, Concern & Reflection

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Arch-Street-Teen-CenterAfter Teen Drinking Incident, Concern & Reflection

The huge pink mylar heart balloons were still on the stage Tuesday at the Arch Street Teen Center after a difficult weekend. Seven teenagers were taken by ambulance to Greenwich Hospital for severe intoxication last Saturday night, and several more were driven to the hospital by parents.

Arch Street made the calls for help after the seven intoxicated youths showed up at the teen center for its annual Valentine’s dance. None were allowed into the dance.

According to the teen center, teenagers planning to attend a dance must run a gantlet of adults before being admitted to the second floor of the building, where the dances are held. The adults include Kyle Silver, the executive director of Arch Street, chaperones, and typically one or two off-duty police officers.

Initial reports that the event had many severely intoxicated teens present at the dance itself proved to be inaccurate. There were no reported incidents of drinking or alcohol use inside the event.

“We have a lot of checkpoints in place to ensure Arch Street is alcohol free,” explained Silver, who runs about one dance a month for this age group, usually without incident. “This time a small percentage of kids drank before they arrived. We have checkpoints to make sure they don’t get in to the dances.”

The Greenwich Police Department is looking into the incident in an effort to discover how so many kids arrived intoxicated to the party.

“Can you imagine what might have happened if Arch Street had not been so careful?” asked Sara Keller, co-chair of the board of directors of the non-for-profit. “I’m so grateful that all of the safety precautions that we put into place held up and no one was seriously injured.”

About 400 people were scheduled to attend the event, but the teen center decided to shut it down because emergency services could no longer be on standby in case another sort of emergency arose, according to Silver.

“We have an ambulance from GEMS on standby for dances and large events in case of a medical emergency like allergies, for instance,” he said. “Arch Street is peanut-free, but you never know if someone had something with peanuts in it before they came and that can trigger a reaction. We prepare for that and a hundred other scenarios.”

Chief of Police Jim Heavey credited GEMS with a swift and professional response. “GEMS did an outstanding job handling this large situation and had plenty of personnel on scene in addition to the police,” he said.

The winter event is unique among teen center dances because of its timing, according to board members. Regular dances generally draw from schools in town including Greenwich Academy, Brunswick, Sacred Heart, Greenwich High School and others. The Valentine’s dance tends to fall on a long weekend break from boarding schools, many of which had students home or visiting Greenwich. At least one of the teens brought to the hospital was here on break.

“It was a perfect storm of circumstances,” one board member observed.

One issue on which everyone agreed was that parents should be vigilant. Chief Heavey said the GPD “will also be reminding parents of their responsibility as parents and as hosts of other people’s children in their home.”

Silver was adamant about parental involvement: “It is imperative that parents and other trusted adults initiate the hard conversations with our kids about underage drinking well in advance of the first time they are faced with a decision regarding alcohol.”

Local schools weighed in on the issue as well, sending letters home to parents with strongly worded requests. Greenwich Academy’s head of school, Molly King, wrote, “Please speak to your daughter about this topic, and above all, be vigilant when it comes to her safety and the safety of her peers. It’s the right thing to do— something wholly aligned with our shared mission to build girls of exceptional character. And to put it more starkly, it can also be a matter of life and death. A few bad decisions in one night can unravel the hundreds of good decisions our girls make every year.”

Brunswick’s message home included a feeling many in the community have expressed. “It is unfortunate indeed that such a wonderful town asset such as the Teen Center (specifically designed to provide teens with healthy, alternate options for their weekend time) risks being compromised due to the poor choices and behavior of some.”

Sacred Heart wrote, “Underage drinking appears to be of epidemic proportions in Greenwich and neighboring towns. We need to wage war against it. We cannot do this without the help of you, our parents.”

The Arch Street Teen Center leadership is reassessing how to handle the Valentine’s dance and other events moving forward. The police department and others support the use of passive alcohol detectors (breathalyzers) that have been used at Greenwich High School dances with good results.

According to Silver, “Teenagers are the population we serve and this age group may come with challenges, but that is why we’re here and why the teen center is so important. An entire age group should not be defined by a few very poor decisions.”

The teen center is offering a refund to anyone that paid $25 to attend the Valentine’s dance.

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