Five years ago, party hosts spent weekends in fear of Madison Police Department officers busting up house parties and passing out large numbers of fines to hosts and their underage partygoers under a program called Operation Sting.
The program, which ended in 1997 after several years of implementation, received funding from a state drunken driving-prevention grant worth $8,800 in Operation Sting's last year, the Daily Cardinal reported. The grant was used to pay overtime to officers working under program.
Now, a recent Alcohol License Review Subcommittee on Comprehensive Alcohol Issues report has begun to raise concerns with several of the plan's opponents who fear its return.
\Police would go out undercover with the youngest-looking officers, go out hunting for house parties, infiltrating house parties, and once inside, the cavalry would surround the house,"" said Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, describing the plan. ""No one could get out, and everyone underage would get a ticket. And the sponsors would face tens of thousands of dollars in fines.""
Madison Police Department Capt. George Silverwood said officers had trouble controlling the large, out-of-control parties from which they received disturbance reports.
""If you've got a couple hundred people, fights are breaking out, sending out a couple officers at that point is really pretty worthless. That's how that came about,"" Silverwood said. ""When you got there, things were so out of hand that, for one thing, it was an officer safety issue.""
The committee's recommendation calls for ""reallocation of resources to address real threats to individual and public health and safety related to alcohol use and abuse,"" and more specifically refers to ""utilizing public and private resources to educate and monitor those whom would hold house parties.""
Verveer said the passage's vague wording leaves it open to interpretation.
""The report does not specifically call for Operation Sting. It is a very wide-open recommendation calling for more resources going to house party enforcement,"" Verveer said. ""My concern is that this can go back to the days of police not just going to parties that are drawing attention to themselves and have problems, but going to parties that are giving nobody any problems.""
However, without house party enforcement, one cannot effectively fight alcohol abuse when students leave monitored drink spots like bars for unsupervised parties, according to Ald. Kent Palmer, District 15, one of the three members on the subcommittee which authored the report.
""They're an unregulated venue. We find that a third of calls to detox usually involve a house party,"" he said. ""We shouldn't just be looking at the facilities, just at the bars and taverns, nor should we be looking just at the liquor stores, who need to be looking at these unlicensed venues and have people accept some of the accountability and responsibility that comes with serving alcohol.""
Palmer said that busting house parties is not one of the report's primary priorities.
""I think the largest part of it is going to be educating people on really what it is to be able to drink safely, or what unhealthy drinking looks like, so that people are able to check in with themselves as they're partying,"" he said.
The report will be heard by the Common Council on May 7, according to Palmer.
