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A Burrillville, RI man was recently charged with violating Rhode Island’s Social Host Law after serving alcohol to two 10 year-olds and an 11 year-old, requiring urgent hospitalization for the children. Police responded to Paul White’s home after a Burrillville couple reported that White served alcohol to their 10-year-old daughter and her two friends. The couple had sent their older daughter to White’s home looking for her 10 year-old sister after she had failed to come home for her curfew. The older daughter found the three girls intoxicated – slurring their words and not able to walk. The three girls had to be hospitalized (PD: Drunk 10 year-old found near numerous empty bottles). At White’s home, police and rescue found numerous bottles of alcohol and a bucket of vomit next to the children. Paul White was arrested and charged with three counts of procuring alcohol to a minor – Rhode Island’s Social Host Law – and three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
The legal drinking age in Rhode Island is 21. (R.I. Gen. Laws. § 3-8-4) RI personal injury lawyers are very concerned because these minors drank so much that they were legally intoxicated – one child blew a BAC reading of 0.084. (Daily Mail News). The Social Host Law prohibits anyone aged 21 and over from “permit[ting] the consumption of alcohol by under-aged persons [who are not the host’s minor child] in his or her residence or on his or her real property.” (R.I. Gen. Laws. § 3-8-11.1.)