Friday, November 13, 2026
Long Beach AWARE presented a grant of just over $32,000 to reimburse the Long Beach Police Department for enforcement of underage drinking and drug-related regulations at the City Council meeting on Nov. 4.
The grant was funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that helps states, communities, Indigenous tribes and nonprofits pay for behavioral health services.
“The Long Beach Police Department and Long Beach AWARE have had a relationship for more than two decades,” Acting Police Commissioner Richard DePalma said. “We really appreciate the partnership to help save lives and keep our community safe.”
Long Beach AWARE’s executive director, Judi Vining, explained that the grant’s primary purpose is to combat underage drinking, but it is part of a larger effort to ensure community safety while offsetting about $22,000 in overtime pay for police officers. She cited more than 200 citations issued from June 20 to Sept. 29 of this year that were unrelated to underage drinking.
“While the police are out there doing business for us,” Vining said, “the community benefits in terms of quality-of-life issues that affect our community as well.”
Later in the meeting, she addressed what she called the elephant in the room. On Oct. 30, the Police Department responded to calls about a party on East Park Avenue, where some 250 young adults had gathered. According to Vining, officers issued summonses to a number of underage drinkers, and the owners of the property received summonses for violating social host laws, which hold adults accountable when they knowingly allow those under age 21 to drink.
“We had a horrendous event happen Friday night,” Vining said. “You are not doing anyone any favors by looking away.”
In 2006, Long Beach became the first city in the state to pass a local police-enforced social host law. The penalty for violating the ordinance is up to $1,000, 15 days in jail or both. Underage drinkers who are cited may be required to attend a three-hour education series hosted by Long Beach AWARE.
“There are 38 other communities and 14 counties [in the state] that have modeled their social host laws off Long Beach law,” Vining said. “[When] an opportunity presents itself, it’s not so much educating the kids. We need to educate the community.”
In an earlier interview, Vining said that underage drinking has become something of a rite of passage in Long Beach. When the coalition conducted studies of young drinkers, some explained that they would stand outside convenience stores and ask older men to purchase six-packs of beer for them. They don’t ask housewives, she said.
Nationally, Vining said, 7.9 percent of youths ages 12 to 20 reported binge drinking — consuming four or more drinks on one occasion for women and five or more for men — in the previous month, and 1.8 percent reported heavy alcohol use, defined as binge drinking on five or more days over the course of a month, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The explanation, in part, is the easy access to alcohol.
“When your child was 5 years old, you locked up the cleaning supplies because you knew it was dangerous and it was appealing to them,” Vining said. “It’s the same thing with alcohol, and we recommend all parents lock up their alcohol. Kids should never drink. Their brains are not developed until they’re 25, and it’s up to adults in the community to stop them.”
For more information on Long Beach AWARE, visit longbeachaware.org.
