A Sakonnet Times article, not online, by Tom Killin Dalglish cites the Tiverton Prevention Coalition as stating that our town has a “problem with underage drinking.” Having grown up in a highly populated New Jersey suburb of New York City, but with one grandparental foot in the quiet Vermont town of Bennington, I imagine any town with plenty of open space and not all that much to do within its borders will find alcohol and related teen indulgences to be an issue.
Oddly, the Coalition doesn’t cite this factor as a “root cause”:
“Root causes” of the underage drinking in town, according to the strategic planning committee of Prevention coalition, are “easy access to alcohol, community attitudes, inconsistent knowledge of alcohol-related laws, and peer influence, including the growing presence of gang members from nearby cities.”
Gang activity in town, said Tiverton Police Chief Thomas Blakey, “has been going on to some degree” for a long time. There is no sudden increase in gang presence in town, he said, “it’s just something we should be cognizant of.”
Obviously, we can’t close of our border with Fall River, although stepping up inspection of suspicious drivers with Massachusetts plates might have some beneficial effects. Similarly, having been a teenager, once, I’ll attest that more consistent “knowledge of alcohol-related laws” would not have curbed my behavior, although more police harassment might have done so. (Of course, the open space presents a problem, there.)
Happily, the solutions that I’d suggest for addressing teenage drinking are precisely the solutions that I’ve been suggesting for the Tiverton community more broadly. The first is economic development, and by this, I don’t mean additional bureaucrats to tweak this and pitch that; I mean a change of attitudes toward trying to control what can go where. Main Street in North Tiverton is clearly not as attractive to businesses as would be a plot of land along the highway — the truly peculiar thing being that putting stores, offices, and other operations in such an easily accessible location would probably be less disruptive to the rest of the town. Wherever they’re located, more businesses means more potential for entry-level jobs and more activities, whether arcades, movies, or whatever, that don’t involve beer and a remote location in the woods.
The second is more intelligent allocation of the funds that we already devote to the children of our town. Certainly, the school district should not even be thinking about decreasing programs and activities. Further still, if the department cannot maintain the fortitude to rein in adult pay and benefits in order to provide more expansive services to students, then the town should reorder its priorities and either direct education funds toward extracurriculars apart from the schools or leave the money with the taxpayers, to fund activities of their own choosing.
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