Guilt by association: Suburb targets underage partygoers, drinking or not

NAPERVILLE, Ill. - Some parents in Chicago suburb of Naperville are complaining about a city ordinance that targets their teenagers who attend underage parties but are not drinking themselves.

Naperville police have written more than 100 presence restriction tickets in the first six months of the year. The tickets target people under 21 who aren't drinking but are with underage peers who are.

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http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S=2174242

So, you get a ticket if the guy on the other side of the room is breaking the law? Don't tell Ashcroft about this! It'll give him a reason to make mass arrests during the GOP convension.

When I was 20 my friend called me up to come to a bar to "celebrate" his b-day. We were planning a surprise party for him that night so it wasn't like I could say that i'd celebrate with him later. I had no plans to drink, just socialize with friend who were drinking (most of them were twenty like me, but my friend who was having the b-day was then 21). I got arrested for underage possession of alcohol just because the table I was sitting at had beer cups and pitchers on it, plus my friend got arrested for "supplying" when it was the bar that sold it to everyone else at the table underage!

I'd really like to know how legal this is, since it would seem there is no "probable" cause if the officer had no indication the kid was drinking.

My own pet peeve on this "gult by association without direct probable cause issue" (forgive me that this is somewhat moving off topic), has to do with dog leash laws. My nearby park is constantly targeted by the "dog squad" in their vans to ticket those who congregate with their dogs off-leash (never mind the blatant sex-for-hire activity after-dark and the drug transactions in the bushes that are ignored, they MUST go after those law-breaking poodle owners)! They now have taken to ticketing anyone in the vicinity of this group--even if they never saw that person's dog offleash, so that people walking though the park with their leashed dogs, who stop momentarily to say hello, get caught up as well. If they argue and refuse to take the citation, they are simply arrested and their dog taken to the pound. Their response (the dog "nazis")is that you will have to contest it in court. Great, take a day off work to go argue with a judge who may or may not believe you. DU Lawyers, how is this legal, (any more than willy nilly arresting every teen at a party where some underage kids are drinking is legal)?

I'm itching for a fight.