The Albuquerque Police Department Party Patrol was on the lookout during tailgate parties on Saturday and issued six citations for underage drinking, said Lt. Harold Medina, APD party patrol coordinator.
Officers were checking for underage alcohol drinking, and APD sent out an e-mail to all UNM students on Friday warning that law enforcement would be at the next three games checking IDs and issuing citations to drinkers under 21.
The Party Patrol issued six citations for minors in possession of alcohol during pregame tailgating Saturday, Medina said. Twelve officers from the Party Patrol were at the tailgate, he said.
Medina said the Party Patrol will continue to come to future tailgate parties to enforce drinking laws.
“I think that the University opens themselves up to a lot of liability if they don’t put their foot down about underage drinking,” he said.
Medina said Party Patrol didn’t start coming to tailgates because of any specific incident, but he knows that there have been many problems that involved alcohol at tailgates.
“I do know that in the past there have been fights out here because of underage people drinking alcohol,” Medina said. “There have been problems at times because of alcohol consumption.”
Lt. Robert Haarhues of the UNM Police Department said there have been issues with underage drinking at tailgates in the past.
“I know that two years ago, at the state game, there were a lot of intoxicated kids,” Haarhues said. “Hopefully Party Patrol will keep these younger students from drinking and the older ones from getting in trouble by supplying alcohol to students who aren’t of age.”
Haarhues said the low number possibly means students weren’t drinking.
“We expected them to issue more citations, but there were only six,” Haarhues said. “Maybe it worked — we’ll see how it goes for the rest of the season.”
Medina said the officers avoid issuing citations in most circumstances, since their officers don’t have a citation quota to meet. APD encourages students to cooperate with officers and have fun without alcohol, he said.
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“As long as kids are cooperating with us and working with us and not lying, they are just going to receive a citation,” Medina said. “A citation is in lieu of arrest. It is our goodwill effort not to take them to jail.” Student Bridgette Madrid said she
attended the tailgate parties for two hours, and the low number of citations reflects the amount of underage drinking she saw.
“I didn’t really see a lot of underage drinking at the tailgate, because the people that I went with were under 21, and we weren’t drinking,” she said. “From what I saw, I think that six citations is correct.”
Madrid said the e-mail might have prevented underage students from drinking.
“I think that when people got the e-mail about Party Patrol being there, they were nervous to drink, so I think it definitely stopped a lot of people,” she said.
