<p>Longtime lurker here. Just got in from work and opened up today’s mail, and there’s an envelope from the police department in D19’s college town. I figured I got pinched for running a red light when I dropped her off last month, but no, it’s an underage drinking ticket from 2 months ago that was for whatever reason sent to our home address. My daughter is normally very open with me but she definitely declined to tell me she had been caught drinking last semester.</p>
<p>I had the drinking talk with her before we moved her in last fall, and although I assumed she had probably tried drinking I expected more of her than this. I haven’t told her about the ticket yet because I’m not sure how to handle it. Who else has been here?</p>
<p>I have been there. It is a fine and I believe it gets expunged after a while if there are no other violations. Our D waited a few days before telling us and it really scared the hell out of her since it was her first interaction with the cops. She applied for a state department internship in her final year where they do a full background check - the ticket showed up even though it was “expunged”. Apparently, the guy who interviewed her said no big deal and that if I have to disqualify every kid who has a drinking ticket, then there won’t be too many kids left in the USA. I posted this one another thread recently – my older one wants to talk to her little sister who is heading out to college this fall about drinking. She now tells us that binge drinking is a real problem. Maybe we were just naive the first time around. </p>
<p>It wont be a huge deal in the future. Just make sure it gets expunged. If you were here to discuss the possible repercussions to this ticket. Your D paying the fine should be enough punishment as it is. That is, if they are not financially reliant on you. Do not pay the ticket for her or there is no lesson learned.</p>
<p>Been there. Different states and jurisdictions handle it differently. She needs to proactively look into it. Our son completed 40 hours of community service and took a class before his court date. The citation was then entered as nolo proseque (sp?). After a set amount of time with no further citations he was able to have it expunged. The judge was less than kind to the people who hadn’t done anything prior to the court date. </p>
<p>Lawyers are not needed, IF it is a simple citation. We hired one to handle the expungement process, though that wasn’t necessary, it was more convenient.</p>
<p>If you want a lawyer, hire one in the jurisdiction where the citation occured, not one in your town. </p>
<p>Expungements never completely make the citation “go away”. The citation will not show up on a simple background check for a job, but it will show up if your daughter is aiming for security clearances. And it will show up on a background check for passing the bar, for example. The bar background check looks for discrepancies in what the applicant stated on her law school application. In that case, it would be very important that she divulge the expunged citation at the time she applies to law school. One citation wouldn’t keep her out of law school, but lying about it would prevent her from passing the bar years later. Same thing with security clearances. An underage citation won’t keep her from passing the background check, but lying about the fact that she had a citation which has since been expunged would be a problem,.</p>
<p>Both my S’s have been down the same road. Both took alcohol education classes to get the charge dismissed. In S1’s case (freshman year of college), the alcohol education classes were offered on his big state u. campus. </p>
<p>We got a lawyer to handle S2’s ticket. S2 took the classes in our hometown and the lawyer got the charge dismissed. In our state, you have to wait a year with no further tickets to get the charge expunged.</p>
<p>I know it’s very upsetting for your family (it was for us) right now but it’s not end of the world. Thousands of kids get underage drinking tickets at college every year. I’m not condoning it. Just saying that lots of “good kids” still manage to mess up. S1 got two tickets in college. Neither were expunged. He’s been out of college almost 5 years and has a military job that requires top security clearance.</p>
<p>"that was for whatever reason sent to our home address. "</p>
<p>cuz isn’t her home address on her license? I imagine that each student had to show ID and her DL had her home address on it. ID would have been requested to determine who was underage and who wasn’t. </p>
<p>Did this happen in a dorm room?</p>
<p>I don’t know what the “drinking talk” was before she went to college, but frankly nearly every college student in the US could get one of these tickets. It’s just luck who gets caught and who doesn’t. Cops show up, those who can’t show that they’re over 21 can get a ticket. </p>
<p>My drinking talk with my kids is the same one that I give them now that they’re both over 21. don’t drink and drive…and I will pay for any taxi at any time if needed, no questions asked. </p>
<p>My D got one during the summer on a dry beach when she was 19. Handled it on the spot with a fine, police told them it was similar to a parking ticket. She did disclose it when applying for a State Dept clearance, and they told her she needed to not drink again in the US until she was 21 because she would need to take a lie detector test for next level of clearance. (She was allowed to legally drink on her European study abroad). She knew it was a stupid mistake, I did not need to handle it at all.</p>
<p>The ticket is a small problem. The fact that you are just finding this out after 2 months is a bigger problem. Time for a good long talk about taking responsibility for her actions.</p>
<p>@MomofJandL That is exactly how I feel. I work in HR and I’d guess that close to 1 in 3 new grads who apply for jobs have a ticket like this on our record. We don’t care about it unless there are multiple offenses. I also know the process from friends’ kids who have been here. The fine is $260, she has to appear in court, and it can be expunged when she turns 21. Her license will be suspended for 90 days starting March 1, but she’ll be at school for all but the last 2 weeks of that so that shouldn’t be a big concern.</p>
<p>The only mystery to me is why the ticket was mailed, and so long after the offense, instead of given to her the night she was caught.</p>
<p>But the bigger issue for me is that she was caught and that I am just finding out about this. She’s not usually one to hide things. The school she goes to is known as a big drinking school and I told her I didn’t expect her not to partake, but I expected her to always be responsible and always call me if she was in trouble or needed a ride. She implied that she had tried drinking when she came home for Xmas, but her first semester grades were good and I had no reason to believe it was a problem.</p>
<p>When DH and I were in college the people under 21 who drank responsibly and kept it indoors never got caught–the people who got tickets were the ones being stupid and reckless. Has this changed–is it more common to get a ticket now?</p>
<p>My D1 got a ticket, “minor consumption” four years ago when she was a junior in college (age 20). She told me right away and was incredibly careful thereafter. In her case she was leaving a party in a large group, the cop told them all to stop, everyone ran but her, and she got a ticket. She went to court and paid a $100 dollar fine and that was it. She is a high school teacher now and had to pass multiple clearances, so it didn’t hurt her. </p>
<p>I know a young man who was at a party (off-campus house) that was raided. The group of students–30 to 40 of them–were lined up for breathalyzers and information was taken (driver’s license, etc). Some jumped out windows and fled. They were told the citations would be mailed to them. It never came. None of them received a citation. Police either decided it was too much work or it was a bluff to convince them to be more careful. Hosts were cited but hired counsel and charges were lessened or dropped. Most of these kids fessed up to their parents for “nothing”! Underage drinking can be a serious charge in some states. Varies significantly from state to state.</p>
<p>As other posters have said, every state is different and individual town police forces can be vastly different in how they deal with college students. S went to uni with very poor town/gown relations and police seemingly went out of their way to bust kids as a very lucrative revenue stream for everything from open containers to public drunkenness (kids just walking quietly home to off-campus apartments from parties, for example). They deployed undercover officers and vehicles to do so. The magistrate made coming down hard on uppity college kids her stock-in-trade to get reelected over and over. One town over, with a similar university, none of this kind of stuff happened. My advice is always to try to fight to get the first charge/ticket/citation dropped, no matter how minor it seems to be. </p>
<p>“The only mystery to me is why the ticket was mailed, and so long after the offense, instead of given to her the night she was caught.”</p>
<p>that’s not unusual. I know that parking tickets are often left on cars and mailed. I’ve lived in areas where speeding tickets are given in person and mailed. </p>
<p>If the fine is due by a certain date (when was/is it due) and that is either past or approaching a reminder may be mailed home. </p>
<p>If your D wasn’t physically given anything that night, then maybe there were many to process and it took awhile to do so. Was she at a party where many were “caught”? </p>
<p>My son’s incident happened in September, but he did not receive the paper citation until two months later, and the court date was in the spring. </p>
<p>Talked to D today. The incident was at an off-campus house party the week after Thanksgiving. There had been a noise complaint and the police came and checked everyone’s ID. People under 21 had to take a breath test. Some people with a high bac were taken to health services, everyone else was allowed to go. D’s BAC on the ticket is .07. </p>
<p>She told me a couple of her friends from that night had gotten tickets in the mail this week so she thought this might be coming. I’m not particularly upset about the drinking, but not sure how upset I should be about her not telling me about this.</p>