100 N.J. teens nabbed at Vt. drinking party
Toolbox
By BRENT CURTIS Staff Writer - Published: June 1, 2008
WEST DOVER — More than 100 teenagers from New Jersey were rounded up during a police raid at an underage drinking party off Route 100 on Friday night.
The raid, which Dover Police Chief Robert Edwards described as the biggest he'd ever seen in Southern Vermont, ended what would have been a three-day prom party for the teenagers from Randolph, N.J., who rented three houses at 303 Route 100.
Tipped off about the party by police in New Jersey, Edwards said it quickly became apparent that the three officers on duty Friday night wouldn't be enough to handle the roughly 110 teenagers who would each be administered breathalyzer tests during the raid which ended at 6 a.m. on Saturday.
"We got to see the sun come up," Edwards said Saturday afternoon.
Within two hours, Dover police had obtained a search warrant along with help from five other departments who sent two canine units and 11 officers to the town's aid.
None of the teenagers were incarcerated or taken to the hospital, but 62 of them were issued citations for possession of malt beverages. At the rental properties, police seized 18 kegs of beer, eight bottles of vodka and about five cases of beer.
Edwards also said police found a "substantial" amount of marijuana during raid but they were unable to identify who owned the drugs, which were found scat-tered over the ground.
"It was a recipe for disaster," Edwards said. "There was no adult supervision obviously and just huge amounts of alcohol. Anything could have happened."
The chief said it was fortunate that nothing disastrous occurred on Friday — or during the teenagers' previous visits to the town. Edwards said he didn't know how many similar parties had taken place in Dover before, but he said many of the teens told police the party wasn't the first they'd attended in town.
Police are still investigating how the teenagers bought the liquor.
The Vermont police departments represented in the raid included Dover, Wilmington, Windham County Sheriffs, Bellows Falls, Brattleboro and State Police.
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