By Scott Brinton
It was well after 2 a.m., and kids were starting to throw up. One girl couldn't stop vomiting. Some at the post-prom party last June considered taking her to the hospital, but they didn't. The revelry continued until late the next afternoon, with alcohol consumed hard and fast.
Christine was at the party that night. She was two days away from graduating from South Side High School in Rockville Centre, near the top of her class, and she wanted to have a good time. Christine and 29 of her friends each paid $100 -- $3,000 in all -- to rent a house in Quoge and partake in a night of heavy drinking.
The group hired a luxury bus to take them from Rockville Centre to the party house in Suffolk County. One of the teenagers bought the alcohol -- Christine isn't sure how -- and delivered it to the home beforehand.
There were many experienced drinkers in the group, but several hadn't drunk previously. "Prom night turned out to be a big mess," said Christine, who didn't drink that night. "A lot of my friends ended up drinking way past their limits and getting extremely sick."
Many Long Island teenagers like Christine end their high school careers with the prom, followed by a big, alcohol-soaked party at a rented house, in a hotel room or at a friend's home, say students and experts.
Last year, a Valley Stream Central High School graduate, who asked not to be identified, and more than 20 friends rented hotel rooms in Wildwood, New Jersey a popular post-prom stop. Rather than try to purchase alcohol at Wildwood, the group packed a weekend's worth of alcohol to take with them. They rented a party bus to get to and from Wildwood.
"We were able to get [alcohol]," the Central graduate said. "We got it from different people who knew different people who bought it for us."
For many graduates, the prom has lost much of its importance as a rite of passage. The real anticipation among many seniors builds toward the post-prom party, where booze and perhaps drugs flow freely and sex is common, many times with parental consent.
Barry Wilansky is executive director of Tempo Group, a substance-abuse clinic with offices in North Merrick and Woodmere. He said the prom is like many other American celebrations. Alcohol is now seen as a necessary ingredient to have fun.
"There's a fundamental ambivalence about" alcohol, said Wilansky. "We learn it as a beverage and a socially accepted experience, and we can't see it in its other form -- as a dangerous, toxic substance."
Feris, 18, who will graduate from Mepham High School in North Bellmore next month, said that plenty of his classmates intend to drink to some extent on prom night. He plans to rent a room at the Marriott in Manhattan and party heavily.
Obtaining alcohol on prom night is easy, Feris said. Older family members or friends provide it, or kids get it from the bars in their limousines. "The limo drivers don't care that there is alcohol in the limo, or if seniors drink," said Feris. "Just as long as the drivers get paid, they ignore it."
Some limousine companies recognize that many prom-goers help themselves to their onboard bars, and so they now offer alcohol-free cars to attract parents who don't want their kids to drink.
subhead: How schools combat prom-night drinking
Feris noted that seniors don't generally bring alcohol to the prom. Once, the big thing among teenagers was to sneak booze into the dance and drink in the bathroom or under the table. But schools like Mepham have cracked down on drinking at the prom in recent years.
Feris said students have been warned about Mepham's zero-tolerance policy for alcohol that night. Any senior who is caught with it or is drunk at the prom will be sent home immediately.
Nick, who will also graduate from Mepham this year, said he believes prom chaperones will check limousines for alcohol, and he's heard that anyone who gets rowdy at the dance will be given a Breathalyzer test and perhaps expelled from the prom. Feris, however, said he thought that was all a rumor. He plans to take his chances and drink before the prom.
Nationally, schools are taking more stringent measures to eliminate drinking at proms, in part because of the enormous liability questions it raises for them. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, a group of Pennsylvania schools recently tried to require each student to pass a Breathalyzer test to get into the prom.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, however, ruled that giving the test to every student, without probable cause, would be an unwarranted invasion of privacy. So the schools now administer Breathalyzers to students who appear to be drunk.
Some schools, like Valley Stream South High, mandate that students sign a contract promising not to drink at or before the prom. Students are not even allowed to leave the prom once they have entered the location, and they are subject to searches by chaperones and school officials if they are suspected of having alcohol or drugs in their possession. If they don't obey the contract, they can be sent home on prom night or worse. According to Dr. Stephen Lando, South's principal, students risk not being able to attend graduation or senior award ceremonies, and even having an award revoked depending on the offense.
Besides signing a contract, South seniors and their parents attend a mandatory meeting in the weeks preceding prom night. Lando initiated mandatory parent meetings a few years ago in response to an incident at a past prom. All three Valley Stream high schools now host similar meetings prior to the senior and junior proms. If a parent misses the meeting and doesn't schedule an alternative meeting with the principal, their child is not allowed to attend the prom.
South's mandatory meeting took place May 12 (the prom is scheduled for June 4). At the meeting, students and their parents watched a graphic video depicting the reality of teenage drinking. The video followed the lives of two teens one who nearly died of alcohol poisoning and another whose two best friends were killed as a result of his having driven drunk.
"It would be nice if [the video] makes people think twice," said Risa Spritzer, the mother of a South High senior. "Unfortunately some people have already chosen their behavior."
After watching the video, Spritzer's daughter, Danya, said the video definitely sent a message "you may not hurt yourself, but you can kill innocent people."
Danya said she and her friends have no plans to drink after the prom, instead, they may play laser tag. But, many members of South's senior class have planned trips to Wildwood for after the prom.
The thought of students going to Wildwood makes Lando cringe. "Even the best of students make mistakes," he said. "Some of the scariest stories that come back from Wildwood involve students that up till then had been the best students."
With schools so strict at the prom, students' focus has increasingly turned to the post-prom party as a time to drink. To combat drinking after the prom, many high schools, like Mepham, require students to be at graduation rehearsal early on the morning after the prom. Arnold Goldstein, a Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District assistant superintendent, said, "No matter what the kids do, they have to be there the following morning."
If seniors don't show up, they don't graduate with their class. The hope is that students will abstain from drinking to make sure they're at rehearsal.
Some schools take the prom a step further, making it an all-night affair. Hewlett High is among a handful of South Shore schools that sponsor alcohol-free, post-prom parties. Hewlett calls it Senior Night, and the PTA, which sponsors the event, plans for it a year in advance.
The party is held on the high school's athletic fields from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. Seniors aren't required to be there, but they are expected to be. Attendance is taken at 3:30 a.m. As with Mepham, students must then take part in graduation rehearsal the next morning.
There's much to draw Hewlett students to Senior Night. There are carnival games. All the food -- and there's lots of it -- is free. And raffle prizes, like stereos, portable CD players and gift certificates to Five Towns shops and restaurants, are given away hourly.
Dr. Joyce Bisso, Hewlett's principal, said, "The parents work so hard the entire year to give the students a memorable night, so it is a sign of disrespect not to attend."
Bisso said that a student caught drinking at the prom or post-prom party would be suspended from school through graduation, which takes place two days later. "I tell kids that this is not the night to test the system," she said.
Still, drinking goes on that night. Jason Chung, a 2003 Hewlett graduate who now attends Nassau Community College, said the high school's post-prom party helps control drinking, but it doesn't eliminate it. "It still happens, but you only get to do it for a couple of hours, which kind of ruins it," he said.
Chung said that students drink before the prom and in their limousines on the way from the prom to the school's post-prom party. And he said many parents are OK with that, as long as the young people don't drink and drive.
For 13 years, Long Beach High School's Parent Teacher Student Association and the Long Beach City School District have sponsored a drug- and alcohol-free after-prom party, dubbed Morning Madness. The Long Beach community and local merchants support the program. Food is abundant, and Jillian's of Westbury provides the games. The program is free for seniors and their dates, whether or not they attend the prom.
College dorm necessities and gift certificates to area shops are raffled off. The evening's highlight is a drawing for a new car. Second prize is a Dell laptop computer, donated by Calculator and Computer Center Inc. Seniors must be at the drawing to win prizes.
Some schools, like all three Valley Stream high schools, host pre-prom parties on school grounds with the idea that if students are at school before the prom then they're not somewhere they can be doing something wrong.
subhed: The role parents play
Believing they can't stop their kids from drinking on prom night, many parents host their own post-prom parties, and serve alcohol. At least, the parents say, they know where their kids are and that they won't get hurt.
Serving alcohol to a minor other than your own child, however, is against the law, said Detective Sgt. Anthony Repalone of the Nassau County Police Department. A parent who is caught giving minors alcohol can be charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a Class A misdemeanor. That's true even if the high school senior is age 18.
A Class A misdemeanor is punishable by up to a year in jail. If a student gets hurt at the party, or is injured or killed while driving drunk after it, the parent host can also be sued in civil court.
The danger with such parties is that parents may know their own children are safe, but they don't see what happens to the other young guests after they leave, said Denna Cohen, president of the Long Island chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Many kids drink at other parties or drive drunk.
"Are you going to guarantee that a child is not going to get up and walk out with the keys" to his or her car? "You can't guarantee that," said Cohen, whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver at age 21.
Across the nation, some states are having such trouble with parent-sponsored alcohol parties that they're passing laws specifically prohibiting them. Kansas and New Hampshire, as well as towns in California and Connecticut, have enacted laws banning parent-hosted house parties, according to the Kansas City Star and the Associated Press.
Parents who violate the laws -- which were put in place this year -- can be fined from $200 in Kansas to $1,000 in California to $1,500 in Connecticut, and face jail sentences of six to 18 months.
Beyond the dangers, allowing teenagers to drink sends the wrong message to young people, Cohen said. When parents sponsor alcohol parties, she said, they're "teaching their kids to drink. You can't do that."
Christine noted that parent chaperones were at her post-prom party in Quoge. "Most, if not all, of the parents were aware of what was going on," she said. "Some of them made a fuss" before the party and decided parent supervision was needed.
Dominick Ianniello, the father of a South High senior, said his son, Paul, and his friends have planned a post-prom trip to a comedy club and once prom night is done, the group will return to his house, but not for drinking "drinking is totally unacceptable," he said. The next day, the group plans to have good, clean fun at an amusement park.
Wilansky went one step further. The Tempo executive director, whose three children graduated from Mepham, said he took the old-fashioned approach with his kids. He required them to come home after the prom, and he waited up to make sure they returned safely.
And Wilansky said, "My children grew up quite fine, thank you."
ITAL Reporting by Brinton, Karenlyn Barone, Nicole Falco, Andrew Coen, Hector Flores, Doug Miller and Angela Marshall UNITAL
