With a 48-37 vote, the Louisiana House today voted down a bill outlawing persons under the age of 18 from possessing or drinking alcohol on private property, unless under direct supervision by a parent or legal guardian.
Under Louisiana’s current law, it’s illegal for anyone under 21 to drink alcohol on public property—but that does not extend to private homes or buildings.
House Bill 67 by Rep. Tony Bacala, R-Prairieville, sought to expand the current law so that minors under 18 could not drink on public or private property without parental supervision.
“It is akin to saying it’s OK to fight in the yard, but take two steps into the street and it’s illegal,” Bacala said of Louisiana’s current underage drinking law. “I will add that in my home parish we passed an ordinance that looks like this law, and 95% of the parents whose children are caught say, ‘Thank you, thank you for keeping my child off the road.’”
Bacala said he has seen situations where police could not take action when they responded to unruly private parties where underage drinking could have led to accidents and harm to children.
The defeated bill would have allowed police to issue $25 tickets to underage drinkers found at house parties and to hold them until a parent or guardian could pick them up.
However, several representatives felt that Bacala’s bill would be difficult to enforce and was infringing on private homes where matters of alcohol consumption should be dealt with by parents.
“In my community we always have house parties, and kids tend to have crawfish boils or whatever,” said Rep. John Bagneris, D-New Orleans. “You’re saying the police in your area went out and they couldn’t do anything [about the underage drinking] because it was private property. But it is private property.”
In other action, the House passed Senate Bill 275 by Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton, which requires public schools throughout the state to teach Louisiana students how to write in cursive by the third grade.
The bill, which received an 88-1 vote, heads back to the Senate with an amendment to delay the start date of the bill by one year.
Rep. Nancy Landry, R-Lafayette, said she added the amendment to allow schools time to prepare for teaching of cursive writing by buying workbooks and coming up with a curriculum to teach the fluid writing style.
“It’s just an ongoing concern nationwide that cursive is a lost art among our students,” Mizell said earlier this session about her bill. “This is about a signature which is an identity for each of our students. This is a signature that you take with you for the rest of your life.”
—D.B. Narveson
Jeremy Alford, D.B. Narveson and Gordon Brillon will publish a daily update throughout the legislative regular session on Daily Report PM. Alford reports on Louisiana politics at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
